Shocked scientists find tsunami legacy: a dead sea

TechBear_Seattle

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:36 PM
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Shocked scientists find tsunami legacy: a dead sea

Shocked scientists find tsunami legacy: a dead sea
By John von Radowitz in London
December 14, 2005

A "DEAD zone" devoid of life has been discovered at the epicentre of last year's tsunami four kilometres beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean.

Scientists taking part in a worldwide marine survey made an 11-hour dive at the site five months after the disaster.

They were shocked to find no sign of life around the epicentre, which opened up a 1000-metre chasm on the ocean floor.

Instead, there was nothing but eerie emptiness. The powerful lights of the scientists' submersible vehicle, piercing through the darkness, showed no trace of anything living.

A scientist working on the Census of Marine Life project, Ron O'Dor, of Dalhousie University in Canada, said: "You'd expect a site like this to be quickly recolonised, but that hasn't happened. It's unprecedented."

The article continues at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/12/13/1134236063754.html

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GreenPartyVoter

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:40 PM
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1. Hmm Wonder what's going on down there?

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DS1

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:41 PM
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2. dead zones are popping up all over the globe

Edited on Wed Dec-14-05 05:41 PM by DS1

I think we're beyond fucked, global warming will be like an annoying mosquito in the ear next to our food supply collapsing

edit to add: caviar eaters and shark finners should be shot and fed to the fish

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Kipling

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #2

6. If the worst gets to the worst, GM foods could provide enough food.

"caviar eaters and shark finners should be shot and fed to the fish"
Seems a bit harsh!

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DS1

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:55 PM
Response to Reply #6

9. Harsh? Maybe

I find fishing for a particular type of fish to tear its eggs out incredibly dumb, and it should be prohibited.

Lifting sharks out of the water to cut their fins off and then tossing them back in to sink to the bottom and drown is both cruel and also incredibly wasteful.

It's time humans learned to co-exist with the planet. We're going to learn one way or another.

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Porcupine

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Fri Dec-16-05 01:50 AM
Response to Reply #6

13. GM foods lack biodiversity. Vulnerable to disease

Take the humble banana. Every yellow banana you've ever eaten is genetically the same as every other one. That's why banana plantations have to be doused with major doses of pesticides and fungicides and occasionally abandoned.

Once a disease gets established in one banana plant it can go through all of them. We almost lost the US corn crop one year because all the favored varieties were'nt resistant to that years corn smut.

Organic always beats GM in the long run.

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wiley

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #2

8. Okay, did Rumsfeld really say that war is like eating corn?

It does make it sound like somebody dropped a nuke,doesn't it? Ironically, Global Warming will be much worse.

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DS1

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:58 PM
Response to Reply #8

10. I made that quote up

But I'm glad you had to ask, it shows how nuts he is

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wiley

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Wed Dec-14-05 06:48 PM
Response to Reply #10

12. I don't believe you made it up,

just that he said it and I missed it. He will say it. It's such a brilliant quote!

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electropop

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:41 PM
Response to Original message

3. Wow, that's interesting

It sucked to be down there too!

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phantom power

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:41 PM
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4. "No one has ever got to a site like this so quickly before,"

"It may just be that it takes a while for things to get back to normal. The sea is very cold at this depth, and typically the speed of life is proportional to temperature. Nothing happens very fast at 4C."

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TechBear_Seattle

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #4

7. I'm more interested in the chemical nature of the surrounding water

One of my co-workers mentioned the "sort of solid" deposits of methane gas known to be at the bottom of many oceans, not quite frozen but kept down by pressure and cold.

I would think that a full out rupture would have been detected. But could the quake merely have exposed a deposit that has been dissipating in to the surrounding water, poisoning it against most terrestrial live? If it is cold methane, it would not have the heat energy that attracts life to thermal vents. Or maybe it is some other chemical reaction, a major change in acidity or salinity?

I would be very interested in seeing a scientific paper on the zone.

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Poppyseedman

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Wed Dec-14-05 06:33 PM
Response to Reply #4

11. Stopped being so rational !!!

as compared the the rest of the thread of doom and gloom

In real life how many "tsunami zones" have we been able to survey? Probably almost zero.

This could be completely natural occurrence rather cataclysmic results from global warning or even the USA not signing Kyoto :eyes:

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Double T

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Wed Dec-14-05 05:46 PM
Response to Original message

5. If we don't ALL start to respect and protect our collective environment...

called planet earth, the entire planet will become a 'dead zone', devoid of life and unable to recolonize, as the dead environment will not support ANY life forms.

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