WEEKLY OCEAN NEWS

DATASTREME OCEAN WEEK FOUR: 26-30 September 2005

Ocean in the News

(Thurs.) Giant squid caught on camera -- Japanese scientists have filmed the giant squid for the first time showing it feeding at great depths. Previously only dead individuals have washed up on beaches or been caught in nets. [CNN]
(Thurs.) Secrets of whale shark dining released -- Electronic sensors have been attached to whale sharks to follow their feeding habits. The tags later release and transmit the data via satellite to base. The sharks dive deeper than thought and love to feast on snapper eggs. [BBC News]
(Thurs.) Arctic sea ice disappearing -- The National Snow and Ice Center reports that Arctic sea ice cover has fallen for 4 consecutive years with September 2005 marking a record low total area. At this rate, the Arctic will be ice-free in summer by 2060. [BBC News]
(Thurs.) Satellites spot "milky seas" -- Historical reports of faintly glowing seas have been corroborated by satellite views and a simultaneous ship report. The culprit seems to be luminous bacterial blooms. [BBC News]
(Thurs.) Algae burgers, new health food? --British scientists propose adding extracts of brown seaweed to high fat foods, such as burgers, for fiber and to replace gelatins. [EurekAlert!]
(Tues.) Typhoon Damrey hits Vietnam -- After leaving 31 dead in China and the Philippines, Typhoon Damrey forced the evacuation of 300,000 in Vietnam before destroying 100 homes and damaging 9000 others. Five million are without power. [USA Today]
(Tues.) NOAA releases aerial damage photos from Rita -- NOAA's Remote Sensing Division released 1100 images of the damage from Hurricane Rita. [NOAA Magazine]
(Tues.) Marine fisheries bill released -- A bill that would reauthorize the 30-year old Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 was released last week by the Bush Administration with elements that included the President's 2004 Ocean Action Plan and calls for a definitive deadline to end overfishing. [NOAA News]
(Tues.) Drilling expedition commences -- An international team of scientists recently embarked on a six-week expedition off the coast of Canada's Vancouver Island onboard the JOIDES Resolution, a research drilling vessel that is part of the [Integrated Ocean Drilling Program]
(Tues.) Dune plants being squeezed -- A model created by researchers at Texas AM University has been used to show that plants growing on the sand dunes between land and ocean have been adversely affected by development, coastal erosion and rises in sea-level, causing the plants to be displaced into an narrowing region away from the ocean, such as on barrier islands like Galveston Island in Texas. [EurekAlert!]
News on Rita --
- Although Hurricane Rita made landfall in the predawn hours of Saturday morning, heavy rain, gusty winds and isolated tornadoes embedded in the feeder bands of this once major hurricane continued to rake the Texas and Louisiana Gulf coasts and the lower Mississippi Valley for the next 24 hours. While some cities, notably Beaumont, TX and Lake Charles, LA, experienced considerable damage, others such as Houston, TX were not hit as hard as earlier anticipated. [CNN] Fishing villages in Louisiana coast were also ravaged by Hurricane Rita. [CNN] However, some oil refineries in Texas could reopen early next week. [CNN]
- Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research were using an advanced research numerical weather prediction model with higher resolution (2.5 miles between data grid points) than current forecast models to track the intensity and movement of Hurricane Rita. [EurekAlert!]
- A radar unit onboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Envisat satellite designed to measure the backscatter of the downward broadcast radar signal from the ocean surface to deduce surface wind speeds detected large waves surrounding Hurricane Rita as it intensified upon entry into the Gulf of Mexico. Another radar unit onboard ESA's ERS-2 satellite measured sea surface height and provided NOAA scientists in the US data to chart the "tropical cyclone heat potential" of the system in an attempt to improve forecasting of the track of Rita. [ESA]
- Reporters covering the approach of Hurricane Rita were advised to familiarize themselves with the historic Galveston Hurricane of 1900 in a chapter written by Neil Frank (the former director of the National Hurricane Center) for a book entitled "Hurricane," edited Robert Simpson (the previous director of the center). [EurekAlert!]
- As Hurricane Rita approached the Texas and Louisiana coasts late last week, state and local officials along with emergency planners were attempting to implement plans that included lessons learned from the experiences of those in southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama when Hurricane Katrina hit last month. [CNN]
More news concerning Hurricane Katrina --
- The last four of the eight trained bottlenose dolphins that were swept from their aquarium in Gulfport, MS by the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina on 29 August were finally rescued by a team that included the NOAA Fisheries Service. [NOAA News]
- By late last Thursday, Louisiana state officials placed the death toll from Hurricane Katrina in their state at 799, causing the overall death toll along the Gulf Coast from that hurricane at 1033. [CNN]
- An environmental engineer from the University of Florida reported that while broken sewers, flooded industrial plants and corpses may be poisoning the flood waters in New Orleans, a significant amount of the contamination also comes from toxins in the metropolitan area that have entered the water as it stagnated. [University of Florida News]
- Aerial photographs reported a crude oil leak from a flooded refinery in the New Orleans metropolitan area. [US Water News Online]
- Prior to the being subjected to the rain and winds from Hurricane Rita, experts assessing the situation in New Orleans following the receding of flood waters caused by Hurricane Katrina were cautiously optimistic that the Big Easy could be resettled in a few months, although more testing is needed to ensure that the city is safe from contamination. [ENN]
- Researchers with the Hurricane Center at Louisiana State University claim that the mud on buildings and the output from their computer models indicate that the concrete flood walls designed to protect New Orleans failed because of structural flaws during Hurricane Katrina, rather than being overtopped as claimed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. [New Scientist]
Modification of hurricanes still a dream -- A hydrometeorologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research stated that while artificial modification of hurricanes might be a good idea, such efforts have led to little demonstrative success in the past because they have been relatively ineffective at altering the behavior of these tropical systems because of their size and intensity. [USA Today]
Could we have Hurricane Alpha? -- Because of the relatively active 2005 hurricane season in the North Atlantic basin to date, only four names remain on the official international list of tropical storm/hurricane names for this season, even though roughly two more months of possible activity remain. If more than 21 named tropical cyclones form, the naming dilemma would be resolved by continuing the list by using the Greek alphabet, beginning with Alpha, Beta and so forth. [USA Today]
Hurricane formation too close for comfort -- A hurricane expert at the National Hurricane Center noted that several of this year's hurricanes, notably Katrina, Ophelia and Rita, have either formed or rapidly intensified relatively close to Florida, possibly because of the location of more favorable atmospheric and oceanic conditions for tropical cyclone development closer to the Florida Peninsula than in other years. While the closeness to the coast, leads to a shorter lead-time for forecasters and emergency planners, it may also keep these hurricanes from strengthening even more. [USA Today]
Earthweek -- Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Concept of the Week: Variations in Marine Sediment Thickness

Sediments are particles of organic or inorganic origin that accumulate in loose form in depositional environments such as lake or ocean bottoms. Marine sediments, the central focus of this week's investigations, have a variety of sources and exhibit a wide range of composition, size, and shape. Marine sediments settle to the ocean floor as unconsolidated accumulations but ultimately may be converted to solid sedimentary rock via compaction and cementation. The pattern of variations in marine sediment thickness on the ocean floor confirms some basic understandings regarding marine geological processes.

Go to the DataStreme Ocean Website and under "Geological," click on "Sediment Thickness." This map of marine sediment thickness in the ocean basins was compiled by the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), Marine Geology and Geophysics Division primarily based on existing maps, ocean drilling, and seismic reflection profiles. Sediment thickness is color-coded in meters from violet (thinnest) to red (thickest). Many factors account for the variation in the thickness of marine sediment deposits including type and location of sediment sources, sediment transport mechanisms, and the age of the underlying crust.

According to the map, sediment thickness generally increases with distance from near the central portion of an ocean basin to the continental margin. This pattern may be explained by the principal sediment source and/or the age of the underlying crust. Rivers and streams that empty into the ocean slow and diverge releasing the bulk of their suspended sediment load in coastal environments (e.g., bays, estuaries, deltas) and onto the continental shelf. Ocean currents transport sediment along the coast. In some areas of the continental shelf, massive amounts of sediment accumulate, become unstable, and flow down the continental slope to the base of the continental rise and beyond. However, only the finer fraction of river-borne sediment is swept into the deep ocean waters. Thickening of marine sediments in the direction of the continental margin may also reflect the aging of oceanic crust with distance away from divergent (spreading) plate boundaries where new oceanic crust forms. The older the crust the longer is the period that sediment rains down on the ocean bottom and the thicker is the blanket of accumulated sediment.

The map indicates that the thickness of marine sediment deposits is greater in the continental margin along the Atlantic coast of North America than along the Pacific coast. The Atlantic coast of North America is a passive margin; that is, the continental margin is not affected significantly by tectonic processes (no plate boundary) and the principal geological processes consist of sedimentation along with erosion by ocean waves and currents. In fact, passive margins and relatively thick marine sediment deposits occur on both sides of the Atlantic. (Passive margins also occur around the Arctic Ocean and surrounding Antarctica.) On the other hand, the Pacific coast of North America is an active margin; that is, the continental margin is associated with plate boundaries and is subject to deformation by tectonic stresses. Active continental margins are relatively narrow so that sediment delivered to the coast by rivers and streams flows directly into deeper water or trenches--preventing thick accumulations of marine sediments from building in the continental margin.

Concept of the Week: Questions

The thickness of marine sediment deposits is greater in the[(continental margins)(deep-ocean basins)].
The thickness of marine sediment deposits generally is greater in [(active)(passive)] continental margins.

Historical Events

26 September 1580...English seaman Francis Drake returned to Plymouth, England, in the Golden Hind, becoming the first British navigator to circumnavigate the globe. He had commenced his voyage around the world on 13 December 1577 with five ships, but returned with only one ship. During his voyage in the Pacific Ocean, he paused near San Francisco Bay and then traveled as far north as present-day Washington State. He brought back valuable information about the world's ocean to Queen Elizabeth I. (The History Channel)
26-27 September 1959...Typhoon Vera ravaged Honshu, Japan, the nation's largest island, leaving over 5000 dead, more than 40,000 injured, 1.5 million homeless and 40,000 homes destroyed. It was Japan's greatest storm disaster. (The Weather Doctor)
27 September 1854...After colliding with the French ship SS Vesta in dense fog, the American Collins Line steamship Arctic sank with more than 300 people on board near Cape Race, Newfoundland, marking the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean. (Wikipedia)
27 September 1922...Report on observations of experiments with short wave radio at the Naval Aircraft Radio Laboratory in Anacostia, DC started US Navy development of radar. (Navy Historical Center)
27 September 1958...A typhoon caused the death of nearly 5000 people on Honshu, the main Japanese island. (Wikipedia)
28 September 1542...Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into present-day San Diego (CA) Bay during the course of his explorations of the northwest shores of Mexico on behalf of Spain. His landing at Point Loma Head apparently was the first known European encounter with California. Before dying on the Channel Islands off the Santa Barbara coast in January 1543, he had explored much of the California coast. (The History Channel)
28 September 1850...An Act of Congress (9 Stat. L., 500, 504) provided for the systematic coloring and numbering of all buoys for, prior to this time, they had been painted red, white, or black, without any special system. The act "prescribed that buoys should be colored and numbered so that in entering from seaward red buoys with even numbers should be on the starboard or right hand; black buoys with odd numbers on the port or left hand; buoys with red and black horizontal stripes should indicate shoals with channel on either side; and buoys in channel ways should be colored with black and white perpendicular stripes." (US Coast Guard Historians Office)
29 September 1959...Hurricane Gracie made landfall near Beaufort, SC with sustained winds of 97 mph and a peak gust of 138 mph. Ten people were killed in South Carolina and Georgia. As the weakening storm moved through Virginia on the 30th, she spawned an F3 tornado at Ivy, VA, which killed 11 people. On the same day, a storm produced 28 inches of snow at Colorado Springs, CO. (David Ludlum)
30 September 1932...Tropical cyclone rainfall of 4.38 inches at Tehachapi in southern California over 7 hours caused flash floods on Auga Caliente and Tehachapi Creeks resulting in 15 deaths. (The Weather Doctor)
30 September 1954...The USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy. In addition to breaking numerous submarine travel records to that time, the Nautilus made the first voyage under the Arctic sea ice at the geographic North Pole in August 1958, passing from the Pacific to Atlantic Ocean basins. The Nautilus was decommissioned on 3 March 1980 and is currently on display at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT. (The History Channel)
30 September 1997...Omega Navigation Station Hawaii ceased operation, coinciding with the end of worldwide Omega transmissions. (USCG Historian's Office)
1 October 1844...U.S. Naval Observatory headed by LT Matthew Fontaine Maury occupied its first permanent quarters. (Naval Historical Center)
1 October 1846...The British naturalist Charles Darwin, ten years after his voyage on the Beagle, began his study of barnacles, which was to appear in four volumes on living and fossil Cirripedes (barnacles). For his observations, he had a single lens microscope made to his own design. (Today in Science)
1 October 1976...Hurricane Liza brought heavy rains and winds to Brazos Santiago, Mexico, causing a dam to break on the Cajoncito River, which killed 630 people as a wall of water crashed into the town of La Paz. (The Weather Doctor)
1 October 1893...The second great hurricane of the 1893 season hit the Mississippi Delta Region drowning more than 1000 persons. (David Ludlum)
2 October 1836...The British naturalist Charles Darwin returned to Falmouth, England, aboard the HMS Beagle, ending a five-year surveying expedition of the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, that included visits to Brazil, the Galapagos Islands, and New Zealand. The information and experience obtained from this voyage led Darwin to develop his historic work on the theory of evolution with the 1859 work entitled, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. (The History Channel)
2 October 1867...A hurricane struck Galveston, TX with a storm tide that produced $1 million damage. (Intellicast)
2 October 1882...A major hurricane struck the Louisiana Delta with 100-mph winds and 12-ft storm tide which inundated the bayous resulting in 1500 deaths. (Intellicast)
2 October 1898...A hurricane struck the Weather Bureau (now National Weather Service) hurricane observation post at Carolina Beach, North Carolina and swept away the office's outhouse. The storm became known as the "Privy Hurricane". (Northern Indiana NWSFO)