Australia's MH370 search technology questioned

Geoscience Australia has been applying specialist marine geoscience knowledge and capability to assist in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. 

This video describes the key processes of bathymetric mapping and side scan sonar, which are used to gather data within the search area for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

From Reuters by Swati Pandey and Jane Wardell

Nearly a year after embarking on a multi-million dollar quest to solve one of aviation's greatest unsolved mysteries, authorities and search teams are being criticized over their approach to finding Flight MH370 in the remote southern Indian Ocean.

The Australian-led search, already the most expensive in aviation history, has found no trace of the Malaysia Airlines jet or its 239 passengers and crew, prompting calls for a rethink into the way the mission is conducted.

Experts involved in past deep water searches say the search to find MH370 could easily miss the plane as Dutch company Fugro, the firm at the forefront of the mission, is using inappropriate technology for some terrain and inexperienced personnel for the highly specialized task of hunting man-made objects.

Heightening concerns, Australian authorities said on Wednesday that another search vessel, the Go Phoenix, which is using the world's best deep sea search equipment and crew provided by U.S. firm Phoenix International Holdings, would pull out within weeks.

No reason was given for withdrawing the vessel from the quest.

"Fugro is a big company but they don't have any experience in this kind of search and it's really a very specialized job," said Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French naval officer who was hired by France's air accident investigation agency BEA to co-ordinate the search and recovery of Air France Flight AF447 in 2009.
"This is a big job," Nargeolet told Reuters.

"I'm not an Australian taxpayer, but if I was, I would be very mad to see money being spent like that."

Fugro, which was contracted by the Australian government to operate three ships pulling sonar across the vast 60,000-km search zone, has rejected claims it is using the wrong equipment, saying its gear is rigorously tested.

Still, Nargeolet's concerns are echoed by others in the tightly held deepsea search and rescue industry, who are worried that unless the search ships pass right over any wreckage the sonar scanning either side of the vessels won't pick it up.

Hard yakka ... Crew of the Fugro Discovery at search zone.

Experts also question the lack of data released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) on the activities of the Fugro ships.

Three of the bidders rejected for the MH370 contract, U.S. firm Williamson & Associates, France's ixBlue SAS and Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search, have taken the unusual step of detailing their concerns - months down the track - directly to Australian authorities in correspondence viewed by Reuters.

Several other experts are also critical, including some who requested anonymity, citing the close knit nature of the industry which has just a few companies and militaries capable of conducting deepwater searches.

"I have serious concerns that the MH370 search operation may not be able to convincingly demonstrate that 100 percent seafloor coverage is being achieved," Mike Williamson, founder and president of Williamson & Associates told Reuters.

An area the size of the Torres Strait has been scoured by MH370 search vessels.

Pic: News Corp Australia Source: News Limited

Diving into the unknown

Australia took over the search for the missing plane from Malaysia in late March last year, three weeks after MH370 disappeared off the radar during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The search area was determined by satellite data that revealed the plane turned back sharply over the Malaysian Peninsula and flew undetected for another six hours before crashing into the inhospitable southern Indian Ocean.

The unchartered waters, buffeted by the Roaring Forties winds, stretch as deep as six km, hiding old volcanoes and cliffs in their depths. Australia, Malaysia and China earlier this month agreed to double the search area to 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles).

 Underwater search map extension to 120000 km area

Whether Phoenix International, which has U.S. navy contracts and found the recorders of AF447, will be part of that extended search area is unclear after the ATSB said that Go Phoenix, owned by Australian firm Go Marine, will cease operating on June 19.
Phoenix International, which was contracted separately by the Malaysian government, did not immediately return calls about its position.
The Malaysian government also did not reply to requests for comment.

Found ... An uncharted shipwreck in the southern Indian Ocean.

Picture: Australian Transport Safety Bureau via Getty Images Source: Getty Images

Previous discovery ... The search has previously detected shipping containers on the ocean floor.
Pic: ATSB

Two of the Fugro ships traverse up and down 2.4 km-wide (860 yard) strips of the sea floor, pulling via a cable a towfish that contains sonar equipment, in a technique often called "mowing the lawn".
The towfish coasts around 100 meters (110 yards) above the sea floor, sending out sound waves diagonally across a swath, or broad strip, to produce a flattened image of the seabed.

The Fugro ships are using sonar provided by EdgeTech, the same U.S. company whose sonar was used successfully to find Air France AF447 after it crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.
However, experts say while the type of sonar equipment being used by Fugro gives good results in flat surfaces, it is less well-suited to rugged underwater terrain, a world of confusing shadows.

The ATSB has routinely released detailed data from Go Phoenix, but has not done so for the Fugro ships.

Experts have cobbled together an analysis from glimpses of the sonar use and data in videos and images posted to the ATSB website.

From that, they've gauged the EdgeTech sonars are operating at swathes beyond their optimum capabilities, resulting in poor quality images and leaving side gaps in coverage.
"It makes no sense to be using fine scale tools to cover a massive area; it is like mowing an entire wheat field with a household lawnmower," said Rob McCallum, a vice-president at Williamson & Associates.

Fugro deputy managing director Paul Kennedy said the sonar is running within its capabilities, noting the system identified five "debris-like" objects in 700-meter (765 yards) deep water at a test range off the West Australian coast.

"The test range gives us full confidence the sonars will see the debris field when we cross it," he said.

Stormy weather ... Fugro Discovery experiencing bad weather in the search for MH370.

Picture: ABIS Chris Beerens, RAN Source: Supplied

Wild weather

Fugro is known for its expertise in high-quality low-resolution mapping of sea floors but has far less experience than some of the rejected bidders in deepwater aircraft searches.

It has been involved in 17 search and recovery efforts for aircraft or ships over 15 years, compared with some of the bidders who search for 4-5 aircraft every year.

Kennedy pointed to the find earlier this month of a previously uncharted shipwreck as evidence Fugro was capable of finding the plane.

Concerning experts further is the fact that the third Fugro vessel, which was being used to scan the gaps between the other two ships with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), was this month taken out of action because of encroaching wild winter weather.

That leaves the daily search without an AUV, a much more nimble piece of equipment that was vital in successful search for AF447.

"We are continuously reviewing the search data as it comes in and we are satisfied that the coverage and detection standards we have specified are being met or exceeded," ATSB Chief Commissioner Martin Dolan said in an email.

Links :

• The Guardian : MH370 search is like 'mowing a wheat field with a household mower' – critics

Image of the week : Saint George Basin, Australia

view on Google Maps

From ESA 

This satellite image over the Kimberley region of Australia captures the Saint George Basin along the country’s northwestern coast.

The basin is a deep harbour connected to the sea by a narrow strait.
It is bounded by steep cliffs with large expanses of tidal mud flats and mangroves.

 Saint George Basin (AHS chart in the GeoGarage platform)

The Prince Regent River flows into the basin from the lower-right corner, and the land north of this river is part of the Prince Regent National Park – a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
The Aboriginal Worora people are the traditional owners of this area, which is one of Australia’s most remote.
It is mainly accessed by air or boat, since there are no roads.

The Japanese Advanced Land Observation Satellite captured this image on 16 June 2009.
ALOS was supported as a Third Party Mission, which means that ESA used its multi-mission ground systems to acquire, process, distribute and archive data from the satellite to its user community.
In April 2011 the satellite abruptly lost power while mapping Japan’s tsunami-hit coastline.

Earth's magnetic declination

The magnetic poles (indicated by green circles) slowly move with time.
The magnetic declination varies with time due to changes of the Earth's magnetic field.
Since the 1970's the Magnetic North Pole has accelerated from less than 10 to more than 30 miles per year

From NOAA

Earth is like a giant magnet with a North and South Pole.
However, the magnetic North and South Pole are not aligned with the Geographic North and South Pole.
The Geographic North Pole is defined by the latitude 90° N and is the axis of the Earth's rotation.
The Magnetic North Pole is where the Earth's magnetic field points vertically downward.
The Earth creates its own magnetic field from the electric currents created in the liquid iron-nickel core.
Compass needles point in the direction of the magnetic field lines, which is generally different from the direction to the Geographic North Pole.
The compass pointing direction can also differ from the direction to the Magnetic North Pole since the magnetic field lines are not just circles connecting the magnetic poles.

 1700 map of declination (compass variation) maybe first use of isolines ?

This dataset shows lines of equal magnetic declination (isogonic lines) measured in degrees east (positive) or west (negative) of True North.
The green line is where the declination equals zero and the direction of True North and Magnetic North are equal (agonic line).
The Magnetic North and South Poles are indicated by the green circles.

World Showing the Lines of Equal Magnetic Declination (1896)

original 1858 by Prof. A. Guyot

It is important to know the magnetic declination when using a compass to navigate so that the direction of True North can be determined.
Since the 1970's, the movement of the Magnetic North Pole has accelerated, which is noticeable in this dataset.
In this figure and animation, the magnetic field from 1590 to 1890 is given by the GUFM-1 model of Jackson et al. (2000), while the field from 1900 to 2015 is given by the 11th generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field.
Between 1890 and 1900, a smooth transition was imposed between the models.
This visualization uses a transverse aspect of the Plate Carrée projection to minimize distortion near the poles.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : World Magnetic Model updated / Earth's magnetic field shifts / Earth's core, magnetic field changing fast, study says

Researchers measure giant "internal waves" that help regulate climate

This animation shows density layers in the South China Sea being perturbed by the regular back-and-forth tidal flow through the Luzon Strait.

These leads to large amplitude internal waves (shown in red underwater, and in white when seen from above), being radiated west to the Chinese continental shelf.

From Phys

Once a day, a wave as tall as the Empire State Building and as much as a hundred miles wide forms in the waters between Taiwan and the Philippines and rolls across the South China Sea – but on the surface, it is hardly noticed.

Simulation of internal waves of the South China Sea by Dr. Harper Simmons of the University of Alaska Fairbanks using Arctic Region Supercomputer Center High Performance Computing resources. Visualization by the University of Washington Center for Environmental Visualization).

These daily monstrosities are called "internal waves" because they are beneath the ocean surface and though scientists have known about them for years, they weren't really sure how significant they were because they had never been fully tracked from cradle to grave.

Surprisingly, internal waves can sometimes be seen clearly in satellite imagery (like in the above image of the Luzon Strait).

This is because the internal waves create alternating rough and smooth regions of the ocean that align with the crest of the internal wave.

Sunlight reflects the smooth sections, appearing as white arcs, while the rough sections stay dark.

But a new study, published this week in Nature Research Letter, documents what happens to internal waves at the end of their journey and outlines their critical role in global climate.
The international research project was funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Taiwan National Science Council.

"Ultimately, they are what mixes heat throughout the ocean," said Jonathan Nash, an Oregon State University oceanographer and co-author on the study. "
Without them, the ocean would be a much different place.
It would be significantly more stratified – the surface waters would be much warmer and the deep abyss colder.
"It's like stirring cream into your coffee," he added. "Internal waves are the ocean's spoon."

Internal waves help move a tremendous amount of energy from Luzon Strait across the South China Sea, but until this project, scientists didn't know what became of that energy.
As it turns out, it's a rather complicated picture.
A large fraction of energy dissipates when the wave gets steep and breaks on the deep slopes off China and Vietnam, much like breakers on the beach.

Researchers from the Office of Naval Research's multi-institutional Internal Waves In Straits Experiment (IWISE) -- including from Princeton University -- have published the first 'cradle-to-grave' model of internal waves, which are subsurface ocean displacements recognized as essential to the distribution of nutrients and heat. The researchers modeled the internal waves that move through the Luzon Strait between southern Taiwan and the Philippine island of Luzon. Credit: Maarten Buijsman, University of Southern Mississippi

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-giant-internal-climate.html#jCp

Researchers from the Office of Naval Research's multi-institutional Internal Waves In Straits Experiment (IWISE) -- including from Princeton University -- have published the first 'cradle-to-grave' model of internal waves, which are subsurface ocean displacements recognized as essential to the distribution of nutrients and heat.

The researchers modeled the internal waves that move through the Luzon Strait between southern Taiwan and the Philippine island of Luzon.

Credit: Maarten Buijsman, University of Southern Mississippi

But part of the energy remains, with waves reflecting from the coast and rebounding back into the ocean in different directions.
The internal waves are caused by strong tides flowing over the topography, said Nash, who is in OSU's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.
The waves originating in Luzon Strait are the largest in the world, based on the region's tidal flow and topography.
A key factor is the depth at which the warm- and cold-water layers of the ocean meet – at about 1,000 meters.
The waves can get as high as 500 meters tall and 100-200 kilometers wide before steepening.
"You can actually see them from satellite images," Nash said.
"They will form little waves at the ocean surface, and you see the surface convergences piling up flotsam and jetsam as the internal wave sucks the water down. They move about 2-3 meters a second."

The graph above shows the band-passed semidiurnal baroclinic energy flux magnitudes.

The waves also have important global implications.

In climate models, predictions of the sea level 50 years from now vary by more than a foot depending on whether the effects of these waves are included.
"These are not small effects," Nash said.

This new study, which was part of a huge international collaboration involving OSU researchers Nash and James Moum – as well as 40 others from around the world – is the first to document the complete life cycle of these huge undersea waves.

The complexity of the Luzon Strait's two-ridge system was not previously known.
The Princeton researchers' simulations showed that the two ridges of the Luzon Strait greatly amplify the size and energy of the waves, well beyond the sum of what the two ridges would generate separately.
The simulation above of the tide moving over the second, or western, ridge shows that the tidally-driven flow reaches a high velocity (top) as it moves down the slope (left to right), creating a large wave in density (black lines) with concentrated turbulent energy dissipation (bottom).
As the tide moves back over the ridge, the turbulence is swept away.
For both the velocity and energy dissipation panels, the color scale indicates the greatest velocity or energy (red) to the least amount (blue).
Credit: Image by Maarten Buijsman, University of Southern Mississippi

Links : 

• YouTube : Internal waves in the Strait of Gibraltar
• LiveScience : Amazing waves discovered in Deep-Ocean Trench 
• Nature : The formation and fate of internal waves in the South China Sea
• Scripps : Study giant south china sea internal waves provides first ever view their entire life-cycle

The new Silk Road: A visionary dream for the 21st century

Silk Road & Maritime Silk Road

From Forbes by Jean-Pierre Lehmann

The New Silk Road may be the dream to inspire coming generations.
This seems all the more the case when set in the historical context of the last half-century.
If it were to become reality, it could be a major inspirational epochal game-changer.
Whether it’s a dream or a nightmare depends in great part on the spirit with which the opportunity is seized and the challenge tackled.

The past golden years

When British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan made his speech on 20 July 1957 saying “You’ve never had it so good”, he was right.
I was 12 years old then and life and its prospects, for a Western European adolescent, did seem good and promising.
Of course I was conscious that it was not like that everywhere.
The year before, 1956, there had been the Hungarian Uprising and its brutal suppression (including the killing of children my age) by Soviet troops.
But as a Western European I realize that ours is the luckiest generation ever.
My grand-father was in World War I, my father in World War II, my mother a refugee from the Spanish Civil War, they experienced the depression, the rise of extremist ideologies, genocide, along with all the other dreadful things that happened.
My generation got peace, prosperity and instead of European War, the European Union.
Not only was the West a far better place than it had been, but things seemed to keep getting better; it was an age of optimism.
In the early 1960s I was living in Washington DC, where racist bigotry pervaded the city and the country; on 28 August 1963, the day before my 18th birthday, Martin Luther King’ gave his famous “I have a dream” speech; it ignited and inspired a whole generation.
Along with the struggle against racism in the West, there was the struggle against sexism, for women’s liberation.
Yes, there was hatred and ugliness, but, as in the lyrics of the famous song of that era, we knew that “We Shall Overcome“.
There was bleakness in the 1970s, including the oil crises, unemployment and inflation soaring, terrorist movements such as the Baader Meinhof in Germany, the Rengo Sekigun and the (Charles) Manson Family in the US.
These were to some extent counterbalanced by a number of more positive developments.
With the deaths of their respective dictators, Salazar and Franco, Portugal and Spain renounced their military dictatorships and embraced democracy.
At the other end of the planet, the Cultural Revolution ended in China, Mao Zedong died and the economic reform program was about to be launched.
If the era were put to a symphony, the grand finale, with drums, cymbals, French horns and the entire orchestral works, molto giojoso, would come in the early 1990s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, the end of apartheid in South Africa, reforms and opening up in India, the establishment of the World Trade Organization, continuing opening of China, reforms in Vietnam, democratization in South America, also in Korea and Taiwan, etc, etc!

The dark years

However, the euphoria of the end of the last century has been followed by disillusionment, or worse, in this century.
There continue to be good things happening, but the overall global ambience is depressing and the outlook discouraging.
Youth unemployment has soared pretty much everywhere, the looming threat of climate change is, well, left to loom, the US and China seem more headed to confrontation rather than collaboration, as the sequels of the catastrophic UK-US invasion of Iraq not only linger, but fester, the situation in the Levant is dramatic, we have the terrible tragedy of the Rohingyas, the many deaths of refugees in the Mediterranean, the consequences of the global financial crisis, the rise of populist parties, the resurgence of nationalism, the cynicism and criminality of too much of the finance industry, and perhaps above all in lieu of the optimism that pervaded my generation, growing pessimism and fatalism among the coming generations.
So I’m ok. I will have had a very good and lucky life.
But I worry for my grandchildren.
And I worry all the more because I do not have sufficient confidence that our business and political leaders, obsessed by cynical egotistical material short-termism are concerned about the next generations.
What kind of planet do we want to leave behind?

The past and future promise of the New Silk Road?

It is in this context that ever since the announcement of its launching I have been intrigued by the vision of The New Silk Road – or, to give it its full rendition, The New Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Route.
I have since followed developments closely; I was privileged to attend in December last year a meeting in Qianhai (Shenzhen), jointly organized by the Qianhai Institute for Innovative Research (QIIR) and the Italian Ambrosetti Group, on the 21st century Maritime Silk Road, and with my great and dynamic class at Hong Kong University this last month we have had wide-ranging, intensive and stimulating conversations on the subject.
I shall also be presenting findings at a major annual event, Orchestrating Winning Performance, at IMD, in Lausanne (Switzerland), next month.
It is a fascinating prospect at every level.

The Silk Road and its maritime Spice Route (see above) lie at the origins of globalization not only in the transmission of goods, but in the transmission of ideas, knowledge, culture, religions, science and technology.
The Silk Road lasted and flourished from the first century BCE until the mid-15th century, challenged and ultimately superseded by the rise of the Portuguese seaborne empire.
The Spice Route was initially mainly the preserve of the Arabs, its point of departure was in Indonesia, which it will also be for the New Maritime Silk Road: spices were the first globally traded product.
The legacy of the Silk Road in history is enormous as it is in art, literature, science and architecture.
The Great Colonnade in Palmyra, Syria, that ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) threatens to destroy, is one of the multiple grandiose and awe-inspiring examples, as is the Kalyan Minaret and Mosque in Bukhara, Uzbekistan (see illustration below).
In Europe, Venice was a major destination for the merchants of the Silk Road, hence of the prosperity and beauty of La Serenissima, as Venice is called; the plan for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is also to make Venice a key destination.

Of course the Silk Road and the Spice Route of the past were very much about money.
There was a pecuniary goal.
But the cultural wealth that was generated was immense.
Global civilization would be much the poorer without it.
The historical Silk Road is a major source of inspiration, wonder and dreams.
Can the 21st century Silk Road be anything of the sort?
The answer to that question all depends on how political, business and thought leaders approach and develop the opportunity.
Looking at the project it is clear it includes (of course) economic objectives on the part of he Chinese, and it is also clear it has a geopolitical dimension in the context of the US-China rivalry.
But if it is adopted as a global project it could also provide a great and dynamic fillip to the global mood and activity.
The fact that 57 countries chose to defy Washington and become founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the financial institution behind the New Silk Road, is an encouraging sign: among major potential members only Canada, Japan and the US chose to stay out.
So it already is a global, or certainly trans-Eurasian project.
There is the engineering feat it will represent.
It will re-engineer the planet much in the same way as the railroad did in the 19th century – something which was also a source of dreams and wonder beyond just the mundane bit of going from A to B.
Remember, among others, the Orient Express (see illustration below)!
It will include regions, Western China and Central Asia – Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Iraq and Syria – that were hubs of globalization at the time of the Old Silk Road, but in more recent times have been marginalized, described as the “orphans” of globalization.
The New Silk Road might give would-be Jihadists other more constructive dreams to pursue than their current destructive nihilistic fanaticism.
With the current forces of de-globalization threatening the prospects of future global prosperity and peace, the New Silk Road might give a boost to re-globalization.

The New Silk Road and Maritime Route can bring about the reintegration of the Eurasian continent. The potential boost for an increasingly inward-looking and morose Europe is enormous.
While the New Silk Road encompasses three continents – Asia, Africa and Europe – for the moment the “new world” of the Americas does not feature.
A compelling recent publication by Germán Muñoz, President of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, proposes how the New Silk Road might link up with another historic global route, the Ruta de La Plata, which served as the conduit for the transport of Mexican silver (the international currency of the time) to Asia from the 15th to the 19th centuries, arguing that: “History can provide lessons for the future, and the legacy of La Ruta de la Plata has great potential – and not just in trade itself. It also provides a template, as do the Silk Roads, for enhanced multilateral cooperation, regional development and integration of Asia and Latin America.”

The New Silk Road is not a given.
There are pitfalls.
But the prospects are also mind-boggling.
It behooves the world, especially the major powers, to tackle the challenge with enthusiastic clear-eyed determination.
It is the kind of visionary dream that could inspire the next generations … including my seven grand-children!

Links :

• OilPrice : New 'Silk Road' could alter global economics
• GeoGarage blog : Mystery of island visited by 15th Century Chinese explorer Zheng He now solved / Restored map reveals early Arabian trade links with China

Troubled waters: the South China Sea dispute

OVER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA (May 20, 2015) Sailors assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 45 conduct flight operations aboard a P-8A Poseidon over the South China Sea.
During the flight, the crew of the P-8A documented several warnings, issued by China’s People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), to leave the area.
The mission documented the continued expansion of reefs which have been turned into man-made islands with airport infrastructure in the South China Sea. VP-45 is on deployment supporting U.S. 7th Fleet operations in the Pacific. (U.S. Navy video/Released/)
other video : AirSource

From Euronews

With the world distracted by seemingly more immediate stories of war, migration and elections, a spat between the US and China wasn’t exactly headline news for many.

It happened earlier this month (May) when a US spy plane flew over disputed territory in the South China Sea, prompting a strong exchange between Beijing and Washington.

Some believe arguments over the contested waters could descend into a military conflict.

Why is the South China Sea so important?

In short, money.

Half of the world’s commercial shipping passes through the sea en-route from Europe and the Middle East to East Asia.

South Sea China ENCs in the GeoGarage platform

Trade value is put at $5 trillion (4.58 trillion euros) every year, according to Reuters.

But, perhaps more importantly, it is believed there are huge oil and gas reserves beneath the seabed.

The World Bank says the South China Sea has oil reserves of at least seven billion barrels and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

This could provide China’s growing economy with energy security but is also of huge potential for smaller countries like Malaysia and Vietnam.

Who claims ownership of the South China Sea?

The sea, which covers 3.5 million square kilometres, borders so many countries: Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, and, of course, China.

China says nearly the whole sea belongs to it, contradicting competing claims from several other Asian nations including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

China’s neighbours – and the US – fear Beijing will use the newly-created facilities for military use, cementing their claims over the sea.

 Country claims to South China Sea, shown in grey 

Why is tension building?

Tensions escalated when satellite images emerged in April appearing to show China building an airstrip on the Spratly Islands, a disputed territory.

 Airbus Defence and Space imagery shows ongoing construction at Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea.

The runway, approximately 3,000 metres long, will be able to handle all Chinese military aircraft when completed.

(CNES 2015, Distribution Airbus DS / IHS)

The construction work on reclaimed land can accommodate a runway around 3,000 metres long, according to a report published in IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly.
There has also been claims China was building airstrips on Johnson South Reef in the Spratlys and Woody Island in the Paracel Islands.

 Chinese dredging vessels around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands, shown in a surveillance image. The work has led to tensions with China's neighbors. (US Navy)

On Tuesday (May 26), China outlined a strategy to boost its naval reach in the region, saying it would go on the offensive if required.

It also unveiled two lighthouses in disputed waters, something likely to increase tensions further.

What happens next?

Taiwan put forward a peace plan on Tuesday (May 26) aimed at reducing tensions between China and its neighbours and the US.
President Ma Ying-jeou called on those involved to shelve their disagreements and start talking about sharing resources.
Launching initiative, Ma urged a peaceful resolution “before a major conflict breaks out.”
Taiwan normally maintains a low key approach to such issues, but has coast guard and military facilities in the area.
They include an airstrip and soon-to-be-completed port on Taiping Island, also known as Itu Abu, the largest natural land mass in the disputed Spratlys archipelago.
Ma’s plan is similar to that proposed for the East China Sea, which opened the way for Taiwan and Japan to jointly fish in the contested waters.

How serious could it get?

Launching Taiwan’s peace initiative, Ma urged a peaceful resolution “before a major conflict breaks out.”
Hua Chunying, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said: “We believe Chinese people on both sides of the Strait have a duty to jointly protect China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests and safeguard the stability of the South China Sea region.”

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : New map boosts China's maritime claims / China's line in the sea / Battle of the South China Sea charts / Ancient map irrefutable evidence that the Diaoyu Islands, the ancient belongs to China / Vietnam demands China removes illegal EEZ dotted line on online map / Photos reveal China building on reefs in disputed waters / China said to turn reef into airstrip in disputed water / Manila says China starts dredging at another reef in disputed waters / China’s lawful position on the South China Sea

New maps reveal California’s sensational seafloor geography

The topography of the ocean floor in the Golden Gate area of the San Francisco Bay. USGS

From Wired by Betsy Matson

An unprecedented effort to map the seafloor bordering California’s coastline has produced some of the most detailed, beautiful and useful maps of an underwater landscape ever made.

Virtual fly-through over the seafloor of Central California near San Francisco as if the water was drained from the ocean.

The movie flies out of San Francisco Bay pausing over a field of large sand waves west of the Golden Gate, and then up to the Bolinas area revealing folded and fractured bedrock.

The movie then turns south flying down the coast past Pacifica and towards Half Moon Bay again revealing folded and fractured bedrock beneath the Maverick's surf break.

The movie finishes by flying over very complex seafloor of folded bedrock, fault scarps, and ripple scour depressions south of Half Moon Bay and offshore San Gregorio State Beach.

The seafloor is colored for depth with reds and oranges representing shallower regions and dark blues and purples representing deeper regions.  (USGS)

No fewer than 18 state and federal agencies and institutions led by the US Geological Survey banded together to make these maps.
A staggering amount of work went into the California Seafloor Mapping Program, and the results are impressive.

 Data integration and visualization, Offshore of San Francisco map area

by Peter Dartnell (USGS)

“Nowhere else in the world are people pursuing comprehensive seafloor mapping at this scale,” said USGS geologist Sam Johnson, the agency’s lead scientist on the project.
“It’s really unprecedented globally.”

 A map of seafloor character in the Golden Gate area of the San Francisco Bay. USGS

The maps could be important for studying things like navigation safety, coastal erosion and sea level rise, fisheries, and earthquake and tsunami hazards.
The maps have already yielded a ton of new information for scientists, along with a few surprises.
For example, in Bodega Bay, the San Andreas fault is actually located about 800 meters away from where it was thought to be.

 Sand waves mapped on the seafloor, looking to the southeast over the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The Golden Gate bridge is to the east (left) of this view. USGS

The scale of the project, started in 2007 by the California Ocean protection Council, is staggering.
For 83 blocks of seafloor, each stretching 3 nautical miles from the shoreline, ten different maps are being made of the bathymetry (underwater topography, as seen in the color shaded-relief map of San Francisco Bay at the top of this post), geology, and ocean floor biological habitats.
The maps are based on a wide range of data collected since 2007, including swath sonar data, acoustic backscatter, seismic-reflection profiles, seafloor photos and video, and samples of the seafloor sediment.
Pretty much the only thing they didn’t use are the Navy’s trained dolphins.
All the data collection and mapping has been completed, and the USGS is in the process of releasing the maps and related reports to the public.
Today the maps for the Bay Area, Tomales Point, and Drakes Bay were published.
A total of 12 blocks have been released to date, and Johnson expects the next ten to be available by October.

 Geology of the San Francisco region

Sensational Geography

If your first reaction to these maps is an urge to print them out and hang them on your wall, you’re not the only one.
Johnson says the map of offshore San Francisco shows off some “sensational geography,” including a deep scour pool beneath the Golden Gate, the first detailed mapping of the Bay’s sand waves and an offshore sand bar known as the Potato Patch.
Maps of the geology below the surface down to 100 meters reveal a big paleochannel through which the Sacramento River flowed around 21,000 years ago when sea level was about 125 meters lower.
But in addition to being very cool to look at, the maps contain a lot of potentially important detail.
Johnson’s group at the USGS studies earthquake and tsunami hazards and is working on producing maps that show in detail where the offshore faults are.
For the first time, they can see precisely how long offshore faults are and whether they are connected to each other.

 Marine habitats mapped along the seafloor near Tomales Point

This kind of information is critical because the magnitude of an earthquake is determined by the length of a fault that ruptures. Longer faults are capable of bigger quakes. If two smaller faults that were thought to be separate are actually connected, they could potentially rupture together to cause a bigger earthquake than previously thought. Discoveries of that sort could even change the USGS’s seismic hazard forecast for California.
One place the data is already leading to new discoveries is near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in central California.
Johnson’s team has identified previously unknown faults and new connections between faults, findings that will influence the current understanding of the seismic risk in the vicinity of the controversial power plant.
Johnson’s team is also looking for evidence of underwater landslides, which can be triggered by earthquakes.
Evidence of past slides and sites with similar characteristics could help identify where landslides big enough to generate local tsunamis are likely to occur.
The scientists have also found evidence for ground failure significant enough to wreak havoc on offshore infrastructure on surprisingly gentle slopes, even ones as shallow as 1 degree.

 Geology in the Refugio State Beach region where an oil spill occurred on May 19, 2015.

The maps show an unwelcome dearth of sediment along the San Francisco peninsula.
This is because such a narrow strip of land doesn’t provide large drainage areas to deliver sediment to the seafloor.
And while this isn’t unexpected, it is troubling.
Naked seafloor is a lot more vulnerable to being eroded by ocean currents than seafloor that is covered in a deep blanket of sediment.
And this problem is only going to get worse, because as sea level rises, more and more of the California coastline will be threatened by erosion.
There are three ways massive coastal erosion is being handled in other areas, Johnson says.
You can just let the coastline retreat and relocate infrastructure further inland, which is expensive and not practical or even possible in some coastal areas.
You can build jetties and groins, but this causes a whole new set of problems and introduces huge, unnatural structures into the marine environment.
Or you can bring in sediment from adjacent areas that have more of it, and stall the erosion.

 Sediment depths in Drakes Bay

 

Mapping sediment thickness, as shown on the map below, is important for this strategy.
And the lack of sediment along the San Francisco peninsula means this method may not be an option. “It was an unknown,” Johnson said.
“Nobody had mapped the distribution of sediment thickness before like we have on these maps.”
One of the most important things these new maps do is create a detailed snapshot of California’s coastline as it exists today, Johnson says.
This gives scientists a baseline they can use to monitor how things change.
The high-resolution data could be particularly useful in evaluating the effects of accidents like the oil spill that hit the Santa Barbara coastline at Refugio State Beach just three days ago.

Map of sediment thickness offshore of San Francisco

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Revealing the secrets of “San Francisco’s Titanic” /
  A virtual first look at unexplored seafloor : Farallon islands / Scientists to create the most detailed map of California coastline ever assembled

Coral bleaching animation

 Zoom into a coral reef and discover photosynthetic algae inside the coral’s cells.

Reef-building corals rely on these symbionts for their survival.

Surfing and sailing from above

Lobos in the air from Tigre Films

l'Hydroptère from Kai Concepts Team

El Niño explained

 What is El Nino and what does it mean?

In this animated video, we explain what El Nino is and how it affects weather around the world.

From MetOffice

El Niño and La Niña are terms which describe the biggest fluctuation in the Earth's climate system and can have consequences across the globe.
The fluctuation sees changes in the sea-surface temperature of the tropical Pacific Ocean which occur every few years.

What causes El Niño?

These events are due to strong and extensive interactions between the ocean and atmosphere.
They are associated with widespread changes in the climate system that last several months, and can lead to significant human impacts affecting things such as infrastructure, agriculture, health and energy sectors.

The name 'El Niño' nowadays is widely used to describe the warming of sea surface temperature that occurs every few years, typically concentrated in the central-east equatorial Pacific.
'La Niña' is the term adopted for the opposite side of the fluctuation, which sees episodes of cooler-than-normal sea surface temperature in the equatorial Pacific.

These episodes alternate in an irregular inter-annual cycle called the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Southern Oscillation is the term for atmospheric pressure changes between the east and west tropical Pacific that accompany both El Niño and La Niña episodes in the ocean.
ENSO is the dominant feature of climate variability on inter-annual timescales.

Our research helped show that El Niño and La Niña cycle has impacts all over the world.
For example, El Niño years are one factor that can increase the risk of colder winters in the UK.
We now better understand these impacts and reproduce many of them in our climate models.

Ocean's hidden world of plankton revealed in 'enormous database'

The Tara, a 36-meter schooner, traveled over 180,000 miles collecting biological samples.

©bepoles/Tara Expéditions

From BBC by Rebecca Morelle

The hidden world of the ocean's tiniest organisms has been revealed in a series of papers published in the journal Science.
An international team has been studying samples of plankton collected during a three-year global expedition.

Planktonic organisms such as these single-celled creatures are found throughout the oceans

They have so far found 35,000 species of bacteria, 5,000 new viruses and 150,000 single-celled plants and creatures.
They believe that the majority of these are new to science.
Dr Chris Bowler, from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in Paris, told BBC News: "We have the most complete description yet of planktonic organisms to date: what's there in terms of viruses, bacteria and protozoa - we finally have a catalogue of what is present globally."

This tiny crustacean was found in a sample taken in the South Pacific

Planktonic organisms are minute, but together they make up 90% of the mass of all of the marine life in the oceans.
They include viruses, bacteria, single-celled plants and creatures (protozoa).
They form the very base of the food chain, and produce - through photosynthesis - half of the oxygen we breathe.
However, until now, little has been known about this unseen ocean ecosystem.

The Tara expedition, primarily funded by the French fashion designer Agnes B, set out to change that.

Many of the organisms are new to science

An international team of scientists took part in expeditions onboard the Tara schooner between 2009 and 2013.
It sailed 30,000km across the world's oceans, with researchers collecting 35,000 samples, taking them from the very top layers of the ocean down to 1,000m below the waves.
The project has cost about 10m euros.

So far the team has analysed 579 of the 35,000 samples that were collected

New viruses

So far the scientists have analysed 579 of the 35,000 samples collected, presenting the results in five scientific papers.
Dr Bowler said the research was transforming our understanding of these ocean communities.
"For the viruses, we describe about 5,000 virus communities - only 39 of these were previously known.
"And for protists - unicellular organisms - we estimate something like 150,000 different taxa.
"There are about 11,000 formally described species of plankton - we have evidence for at least 10 times more than that."

The analysis has revealed that many of the organisms are sensitive to temperature

The researchers also looked at how the different organisms interacted

Of the 35,000 microbes found, most had been seen before, however a genetic analysis of them revealed many new genes.
"We have 40 million genes - about 80% of which are new to science," explained Dr Bower.
The researchers also analysed how plankton communities are organised.
"We have thrown all of these together to see who interacts with whom," said Dr Bower.
"We now have a big dataset where we can ask: 'who do you always find with someone else?' or 'who do you never find with someone else'.
"This helps us to describe symbiosis and interactions that go beyond grazing and predator-prey relationships."

Planktonic organisms such as these tiny jellyfish and fish are found throughout the oceans

'Enormous' database

The researchers have found that many of the organisms, particularly the bacteria, are sensitive to temperature.
Dr Bowler said: "It is temperature that determines what sort of communities of organisms we find.

If we look at our data and we see what organisms are there, we can predict with 97% probability the temperature of the water they are living in.
"These organisms are most sensitive to temperature, more than anything else, and with changing temperatures as a result of climate change we are likely to see changes in this community."

The researchers say that this scientific analysis is just the beginning.
They are making their findings freely available to the scientific community to gain a better understanding of this vital but unseen underwater world.
Dr Bowler continued: "The amount of data we have released is already enormous; it is one of the largest databases of DNA available to the scientific community. But we've analysed perhaps 2% of the samples we have collected throughout the world - so there is a huge amount of work to do in the future to understand even more about the functioning of these marine ecosystems and the importance of that for the wellbeing of the planet.
"So it's really just the beginning of the study."

 Links :

• QuantaMag : Scientists map 5,000 new ocean viruses
• NPR : Census reveals universe of marine microbes at bottom of the food chain
• NYTimes : Scientists sample the ocean and find tiny additions to the tree of life
• Nature : Global ocean trawl reveals plethora of new lifeforms

Native Hawaiian navigator receives Benchley Oceans Award for excellence in exploration

From National Geographic by Marisa Hayase

Master navigator Nainoa Thompson has just been honored in Washington D.C. for “Excellence in Exploration” at the 2015 Peter Benchley Ocean Awards.
He is one of a handful of indigenous navigators left on Earth that can find tiny islands in the open ocean without instruments, using wayfinding techniques passed down over a thousand years.

 Guided by the waves, stars, and a deep appreciation of their culture, Master navigator, Nainoa Thompson, and the rest of the Polynesian Voyaging Society have set a course for a whole renewal of people’s relationship to the rest of nature. 

(Photo by Sam Kapoi for ʻŌiwi TV © 2014 Polynesian Voyaging Society)

Thompson, mentored for decades by Micronesian master navigator Mau Piailug, became the first Native Hawaiian in 700 years to practice long-distance wayfinding.
As president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Thompson has overseen the 150,000 miles sailed over a span of 40 years by the traditional voyaging canoe, Hōkūleʻa.
Thompson and the captains and crew of the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage are nearly 10,000 nautical miles into their current voyage around the world to explore solutions and stories of hope for our oceans and environment.
Here is what Thompson had to say about the award, the connection between finding islands and finding a sustainable future, and why he is feeling hopeful about our ability to mālama honua—care for Island Earth.

 Flooding the night sky with reflected sunlight, or giving a point of reference when clouds block the stars, the moon can have many effects on traditional navigators.

What does this award mean to you and the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage?

The award is not for me, because Hōkūleʻa is the one that has carried all of us.
I just hold it and carry it for Hōkūleʻa and for Mau, the true explorers.
If voyaging matters, you have to be able to acknowledge the thousands of people that sailed Hōkūleʻa, that cared for Hōkūleʻa, that made sure that she would be safe at sea, and the thousands of people that supported her.
At the core of that would be the great Mau Piailug that pulled Tahiti out of the sea and gave pride and dignity to the whole Pacific.
He then came back for four decades and trained us.
So, I don’t accept this award on behalf of myself. But it was an honor to be there.
It was uncomfortable and intimidating, but I learned a lot.

Hōkūleʻa is not sailing in isolation—there are people out there working for a common goal. What Mālama Honua stories of hope did you hear at the awards?

I was among people that are great navigators in their own fields.
You get a strong sense that there is hope among all the scientific evidence that is not hopeful. Together, they provide starlight that we can follow as we try to find our way.

 Nainoa Thompson gives his acceptance speech at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.

So, for me, being there tonight and connecting and building relationships with these extraordinary people, I think it strengthens the voyage and gives me a stronger sense of purpose.
We were in a room full of navigators that against all the odds are doing everything they can to build a better world—the world our children deserve.

As a navigator, what changes have you seen in our oceans and environment over the past 40 years? 

I see less fish, and more fishing boats.
In the early years of voyaging, we would fish and by morning time we would pull in the lines because we had enough to eat.
On our last trip to Palmayra we went 1,100 miles, and did not catch a single fish.
I am not saying that it qualifies as scientific, but we are out there and we see a lot less life now in the oceans than we did before.
It collaborates with the idea that 90 percent of the big fishes are gone.
It is a scary time.

 Healthy coral reefs full of fish occupy only a small fraction of the area they once did.

Mounting evidence from the scientific world is painting a really bad ecological picture of the earth, and the issues of climate change and global warming are issues of society—whether it is economic, social, or environmental.
The things that we call “environmental issues” are the most important issues that humanity has to address across the Earth.

Being with Pacific Islanders—who for thousands of years and hundreds of generations that have had their wellbeing dependent on the wellbeing of the oceans—people are worried.
Things that have never been talked about before—new words like acidification, or dead zones, or hypoxia—all these kinds of new words are in the conversation among Pacific people.

 Across the Pacific, communities are welcoming Hōkūleʻa on her voyage and getting in touch with deep, traditional understandings of the interconnectedness of humans and their environment.

And the irony is that Pacific people had no role in creating those words, and yet they will be the ones that arguably will suffer the most, first.

And yet at the same time, you see there is this glimmer of hope because everybody in the Pacific is talking about it now, and people are coming together, from grassroots and government, and from different kinds of organizations.

So I do believe that what I see is a human reaction to their world that’s in trouble, and they are coming together in a unifying way to make the world better.

It is a scary time, it is a challenging time, but also a pretty a hopeful time.

A manu—bird, guides Hōkūle‘a on her way.

Navigation has become more difficult over the years because of fewer seabirds being seen.

Given that the techniques you use for non-instrument navigation have been passed down through the generations over a thousand years, how do these changes in the ocean and environment impact your ability to voyage?
Can you maintain your traditions?

Things like the signs of the seabirds—we don’t see the seabirds like we used to.
That makes it more difficult.
The sea life that we use in navigation becomes much more comprised.
We still can navigate, but I would say it is diminished.
And then what do you navigate?
What is the worth of navigation if all you are doing is accounting for a world that is diminishing?
So, the issue of tying your tradition to the future comes to a position in which we have to be responsive
 It is about responsibility to nature and the ocean and the earth, which is exactly where we need to be. I think the great navigators of today are the ones that recognize the changes in nature and are taking responsibility to do something about it.
Hurricane Pam, last year, was the first-ever Category 5 hurricane in the Asian Pacific in the month of May. Climate change is here. It is not an idea, it’s not a philosophy; it is here.
With the hurricane season now we are seeing way more intense storms, more days of very dangerous winds.
There were five major storms in the month of March in the North Pacific.
That’s unprecedented.
Being a student of navigation, if our priority is keeping us safe we have to address it and do something about it.

 The navigation is traditional, but the rain gear is modern. Shoes are optional.

There are people saying that going around the world on Hōkūleʻa is too dangerous; there is too much risk. The great risk of our time is not sailing Hōkūleʻa.
The great risk of our time is ignorance, apathy, and inaction.
The signs of nature are navigating us towards a stronger commitment to responsibility.
We don’t have all the answers; that’s why we sail.
At the awards, we met a lot of people that are fully 100 percent committed, compassionate, and caring.
A room full of pioneers and navigators that are doing their piece of the puzzle to create positive change.
We wouldn’t be in the room if it wasn’t for the Worldwide Voyage.
So the voyage is taking us to places that we needed to be.
It makes us not only more hopeful but it strengthens our sense of purpose and helps us understand that it is important for us to sail.

 Nainoa doesn’t see a major risk for the crew of Hōkūleʻa.

“The great risk of our time,” he says, “is ignorance, apathy, and inaction.”

For more about the Mālama Honua stories of hope and Hōkūleʻa’s planned arrival in Sydney, Australia this week, please visit www.hokulea.com.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Polynesian navigators revive a skill that was nearly lost /  Hōkūle‘a: The dangers of sailing around the world