Random beach
The Great Barrier Reef
Codfish
Coral Reef
Monday, April 9, 2007
Random Pictures
For My last entry I decided to just post random ocean related pics (all were taken from random sites on google.com)
Random beach
Codfish
Random beach
Codfish
Sunday, April 8, 2007
More Amazing Ocean Facts!!
=>Low tide at Alma, New Brunswick, showing boats stranded on the ocean bottom*The highest tides on Earth are found in the Bay of Fundy east of New Brunswick, Canada. The channeling effect of the bay is responsible for the amazing difference between high tide and low tide, which, during spring tides, can reach 53.5 feet. This is almost as tall as a four-story building.
*The largest waterfall on Earth is actually underwater. It is found in the Denmark Strait, and slowly cascades downward for 2.2 miles. This is over three times as tall as Angel Falls, in Venezuela, which is the tallest land waterfall.
*The record for the deepest free dive is held by Jacques Mayol. He dove to an astounding depth of 282 feet without any breathing equipment.
*Movie director James Cameron ventured to 12,378 feet below the surface of the Atlantic, in a submersible with a nine-inch-thick porthole, to film the movie "Titanic."
Read more at: http://members.aol.com/jtankard/ocean/oceanfacts.html
Some Weird Ocean Wonders
- The seahorse is the only animal with its head at a right angle to its body!
- A live fish in the open sea never stops growing!
- The sunfish is the world champion egg layer. In one spawning a sunfish can lay 300 million eggs!
- Remoras are used in some parts of the world to catch fish. Fishermen tie a line to its tail, then the remora is pulled up after it sucks onto a fish!
- The bluefin tuna can weigh more than a horse, and can move faster, too!
- Frogfish are the world's fastest reflex feeders, 1/400 second!
- Eels can swim backwards as fast as they swim forward!
- Elephants kill more people every year than sharks do!
- The giant clam (Tridacna gigas) has the largest shell in the world. It can grown over 4 feet (1.2 meters) across and weigh more than 700 pounds (318 kilograms)!
- An unhatched baby octopus can squirt ink!
- Octopi have the most developed eye of all invertebrates. They even see in color!
- The Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish is actually a colony of animals, each with a special duty: feeding and digestion, protection (by stinging), reproduction or transportation!
- The most poisonous animal on earth is Australia's box jellyfish; its sting can kill a human in as little as four minutes!
- The blue whale is the largest animal on earth: it is 100 feet, weighing 150 tons!
- Beluga whales can whistle like a bird, squeal like a pig, baa like a sheep, whinny like a horse, and growl like a dog!
See more amazing facts at: http://www.theoceanadventure.com/Kids%20Page/amazing.html
Friday, April 6, 2007
The Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef, in Australia is "the world's largest World Heritage Area extending 2 000 kilometres and covering an area of 35 million hectares on the north-east continental shelf of Australia. Bigger than the entire area of Italy, it is probably the best known marine protected area in the world. The Great Barrier Reef's great diversity reflects the maturity of the ecosystem, which has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. It is the world's most extensive coral reef system and is one of the world's richest areas in terms of faunal diversity.
The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area contains more than just coral reefs. It also contains extensive areas of seagrass, mangrove, soft bottom communities and island communities. Contrary to popular belief, the reef is not a continuous barrier, but a broken maze of coral reefs and coral cays. It includes some 2 800 individual reefs, of which 760 are fringing reefs. These reefs range in size from less than one hectare to more than 100 000 hectares, and in shape from flat platform reefs to elongated ribbon reefs.
The Great Barrier Reef provides habitats for many diverse forms of marine life. There are an estimated 1 500 species of fish and more than 300 species of hard, reef-building corals. More than 4 000 mollusc species and over 400 species of sponges have been identified."(www.environment.gov)
It has been said that the reef as a result of global warming will become functionally extinct in about 50 years. Get more info on this at: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/index.html
To watch a clip of underwater of the Great Barrier reef, click the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqPdcVqLUEI
The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area contains more than just coral reefs. It also contains extensive areas of seagrass, mangrove, soft bottom communities and island communities. Contrary to popular belief, the reef is not a continuous barrier, but a broken maze of coral reefs and coral cays. It includes some 2 800 individual reefs, of which 760 are fringing reefs. These reefs range in size from less than one hectare to more than 100 000 hectares, and in shape from flat platform reefs to elongated ribbon reefs.
The Great Barrier Reef provides habitats for many diverse forms of marine life. There are an estimated 1 500 species of fish and more than 300 species of hard, reef-building corals. More than 4 000 mollusc species and over 400 species of sponges have been identified."(www.environment.gov)
It has been said that the reef as a result of global warming will become functionally extinct in about 50 years. Get more info on this at: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/index.html
To watch a clip of underwater of the Great Barrier reef, click the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqPdcVqLUEI
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Ocean plastic pollution- the trash vortex
Each year about 300 billion pounds of plastic is produced around the world, but only a fraction is recycled. The rest (the majority) ends up up in landfills, but some finds its way into our oceans. Plastic is valued for its resistance to degradation, so its life span can be hundreds of years. When plastic reaches our oceans, it eventually breaks down due to the action of the sun, wind, and currents, into small, literally bite sized pieces that wildlife confuse with food.
As trash swirls through the world’s oceans to a handful of vortexes like this, it leaves a trail of death and destruction along its path. Plastic is often mistaken for food and has been found inside marine life of all sizes, from whales to zooplankton. It has been directly blamed for the death of a wide range of animals including albatrosses and sea turtles.
The trash vortex is one of the most studied areas of plastic accumulation in our oceans. At its maximum the area can reach the size of Texas. It is made up of everything from tiny pieces of plastic debris to large ghost nets lost by the fishing industry.
Only a small percentage of the trash found at sea is thought to originate there. The plastic int he ocean comes from a variety of sources: from street litter to industrial waste. Pollution of various kind is washed from land into storm drains and rivers each time it rains, this trash eventually reaches the ocean. Once there, the long-lasting qualities of plastic mean that it remains in the ecosystem for decades (and potentially longer), and as more trash accumulates, our oceans and the inhabitants within them are facing a crisis.
The world's largest trash vortexes are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This particular trash vortex is sometimes referred to as the North Pacific garbage patch, it is the epicenter of a system of currents and winds covering most of the North Pacific. It has become home to a familiar substance – plastic.
To see this trash vortex, click the link below:
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans/ocean_pollution_animation
Read more at:http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans
As trash swirls through the world’s oceans to a handful of vortexes like this, it leaves a trail of death and destruction along its path. Plastic is often mistaken for food and has been found inside marine life of all sizes, from whales to zooplankton. It has been directly blamed for the death of a wide range of animals including albatrosses and sea turtles.
The trash vortex is one of the most studied areas of plastic accumulation in our oceans. At its maximum the area can reach the size of Texas. It is made up of everything from tiny pieces of plastic debris to large ghost nets lost by the fishing industry.
Only a small percentage of the trash found at sea is thought to originate there. The plastic int he ocean comes from a variety of sources: from street litter to industrial waste. Pollution of various kind is washed from land into storm drains and rivers each time it rains, this trash eventually reaches the ocean. Once there, the long-lasting qualities of plastic mean that it remains in the ecosystem for decades (and potentially longer), and as more trash accumulates, our oceans and the inhabitants within them are facing a crisis.
The world's largest trash vortexes are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This particular trash vortex is sometimes referred to as the North Pacific garbage patch, it is the epicenter of a system of currents and winds covering most of the North Pacific. It has become home to a familiar substance – plastic.
To see this trash vortex, click the link below:
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans/ocean_pollution_animation
Read more at:http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans
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