Rocks mined from the seafloor have been confirmed as a viable source for rare earth metals, and thus a tiny piece of the ocean might soon find its way into a cell phone or computer chipboard near you. The finding, published in the April 2014 issue of Applied Geochemistry, all but guarantees a new round of focus on overcoming the challenges—both industrial and environmental—of extracting mineral riches from the ocean depths.
Coral sex is a wonder to behold. On a summer night, always around a full moon, corals somehow all know to release billions of sperm and eggs into the sea, turning the water into a pink miasma of sex. This spawning relies on precise environmental cues, which could get scrambled in climate change. That’s why researchers are trying to get them to spawn in the lab.
Everyone knows that the seas are salty because, while water evaporates, the salt doesn’t. But why don’t our seas keep getting saltier?
Just how many large mysterious objects can there be floating at sea? That’s what many of us have wondered after the search for debris from Malaysia Airlines 370 turned up piece after piece of ocean trash. The search for flight 370 has focused our attention on empty patches of ocean and, in the process, shed light on the surreal world of lost shipping containers.
     |
Four blacktip reef sharks swim amongst a school of bait fish off the coast of Argentina. The fish, naturally, do not seem happy to see said sharks. That is most certainly because the sharks are hungry, and they are the buffet.
| |
In this week’s landscape reads, we rediscover the future of steampunk energy, we walk the radioactive shores of a manmade island in San Francisco, we climb to the top of California’s surreal palm tree economy, and we look back with both amusement and horror at pest control in communist China.
| |
If you’ve ever made a trans-Atlantic call—or, heck, used the internet—then you might like to know a few things about the ocean floor. Mighty but enigmatic underwater rivers flow along the ocean bed. And it’s telecommunications companies, who have to lay thick cables for transoceanic phone and internet connections, with perhaps the most to worry about when it comes to mapping those rivers.
| |
Believe it or not, we don’t know how deep large parts of the ocean off the British coast really are, and this is obviously not a good thing for the many sailors who cruise around those waters. A new project funded by the European Community is using technology to solve this problem—technology and lots of boats.
| |
Scientists have known for decades that muddy coastal sediments absorb the power of waves as they roll toward beaches. The result is a free service courtesy of soft ocean bottoms that diminishes the sea’s energy before it reaches the communities living beyond them.
| |
Well here’s a new option for the wealthy tourist who’s seen it all. No, it’s not a trip to space. It’s not a floating hotel room
| |
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
