Image of the week : world’s largest living structure

This image was acquired by Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS)
on 8 November 2010 at a resolution of 300 m

From ESA

This Envisat image features the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s Queensland coast (see Marine GeoGarage position)

It is the world’s most protected marine area, one of its natural wonders and a World Heritage site.
Spanning more than 2000 km and covering an area of some 350 000 sq km, it is the largest living structure on Earth and the only one visible from space.

Links :

• National Geographic video
• YouTube
  

Deep sea exploration with the joint Indonesia-USA Ocean Expedition

NOAA and Google entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to increase access and reach of NOAA data through the expertise and innovative tools at Google.
This map and its products are a result of collaboration between NOAA and Google and establish a foundation for improving data and product integration and access.

From GoogleLatLon

Come on a tour to never-before explored Indonesian waters.
The INDEX-SATAL 2010 Expedition is the first-ever joint ocean research voyage by the Republic of Indonesian and the United States.
To experience it yourself, watch the Google Earth YouTube video tour above or explore the area more interactively with the Google Earth plug-in on our Ocean Showcase.

Much of the Coral Triangle remains unexplored, and this partnership aims to help reverse the decline of coral reefs in the area and to protect natural resources.
The expedition began in the SATAL region around two island chains stretching north of Sulawesi.
It was undertaken by scientists from the USA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, and the Indonesian Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology.

“Telepresence” was used to send data in real time to scientists who stood watch at Exploration Command Centers in Jakarta and Seattle.
This same technology brought the excitement of the expedition to visitors at the Exploratorium in San Francisco as well.

Little Hercules, a remotely operated exploration vehicle, descended 6000 feet under the sea to capture images and videos of exciting sights like hydrothermal vents and creatures like the deep sea octopus seen below:

Mapping and discovery data from expeditions like this will help all organizations involved better understand ocean resources and how to protect them.
More information about the still mysterious ocean will ultimately further economic and environmental initiatives such as the management of sustainable fisheries, the conservation of the marine environment and the preservation of fragile corals.

Dive deeper at Oceanexplorer.noaa.gov, or download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Links :

• NOAAnews : U.S. and Indonesian Scientists find biodiversity runs deep in Sulawesi Sea
• FederalNewsRadio : NOAA expedition uses telepresence to transmit real-time HD video from seafloor to scientists ashore
• MSNBC : Coral Triangle trip reveals possible new marine species
  
• http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/rss/google_earth.html
  

Ocean science giant Alvin set for upgrade

This video walks the viewer through a deep sea dive with Dr. Anna Louise Reysenbach aboard the submarine Alvin

From BBCnews

Few research tools in the history of science can match the achievements of Alvin, the US manned deep-submersible.

It was this 46-year-old vessel which discovered the hot volcanic vents on the ocean floor that transformed ideas about where and how life could exist.
The sub is also famed for finding an H-bomb lost at sea and for making one of the first surveys of the Titanic.
But this veteran of the abyss has been withdrawn from service this week as it gets ready for a major re-fit.

Alvin is to undergo a two-phase, $40m (£26m) upgrade that will allow it eventually to stay down longer and to go deeper - much deeper than its current 4,500m (14,800ft) limit.

"Going to 4,500m means we can dive in about 68% of the ocean," explained Susan Humphris from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
"When we go to 6,500m, we will have access to 98% of the ocean. That will make a huge difference; there is so much more to see down there," she told BBC News.

Dr Humphris has been speaking here in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth and planetary scientists.

Alvin made its first dive in 1965. (see history of Alvin)
Since then it has carried some 1,400 people on more than 4,500 dives.
The vessel undergoes a big service every few years, but the latest will be its most significant to date.

The key upgrade in the National Science Foundation-funded work will be the integration of a new $10m titanium personnel sphere - the "cockpit" in which the pilot and two research passengers sit.
Forged from giant ingots weighing 15.5 tonnes, this protective ball is 16.2cm (6.4in) larger in diameter than Alvin's current sphere.
Its walls are thicker, too, to cope with the greater pressures at 6,500m.

15.4 tonnes of titanium were required to make the new sphere to carry the crew
The new sphere will have five viewports instead of the existing three.
These windows will provide larger and overlapping views, which will give researchers a much better idea of what is happening outside the sub.

The WHOI has brought a mock-up of the new sphere to the meeting to show the community what the finished cockpit will be like.

The upgrade will start in January.
When it returns to the water in 2012, Alvin will be a lot more comfortable

Other improvements in the first phase will include a new floatation foam, a new command-and-control system, better lighting and cameras, increased data-logging capabilities, and better interfaces with science instruments.

Not all its components will be changed in the first-phase re-fit, however, and it is only when all the sub's critical elements have been upgraded, including installing lithium-ion batteries for enhanced power, that Alvin will be permitted to go to 6,500m.
That could be in 2015.

"People don't realise that in many ways it's a lot more difficult taking people to the bottom of the ocean than out into space," explained Dr Humphris.
"When you go into space, you're going from one atmosphere of pressure to zero; when going to the bottom of the ocean, you're going from one atmosphere to 650 atmospheres. Alvin is our space shuttle, if you like."

The vessel is a research workhorse.
Its final dive before the refit occurred on Tuesday when it went down into the Gulf of Mexico to inspect corals, to see how they might have been affected by the recent Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout.

Its greatest contribution to science, however, is unquestionably its discovery in 1977 of a system of hydrothermal vents off the Galapagos Islands.

Dr Humphris says she has lost count of the number of times she has dived in the famous sub
Before its crew saw the vents' extraordinary array of animals thriving in the mineral-rich, hot waters gushing from cracks in volcanic rock, everyone assumed all the deepest places in the oceans would be like deserts - there would be no life.

Today, we know different, and at this year's AGU meeting, UK scientists have been presenting their discovery of vents at 5,000m, the deepest yet observed.

This system was found in waters at a location known as the Mid-Cayman Rise just south of Cuba. It was explored by robotic vehicles; the Rise is beyond the current capabilities of the manned Alvin.
But one of the discoverers, Dr Bramley Murton from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), knows Alvin from a dive he made in the vehicle 10 years ago, and said it would be "phenomenal" to take the upgraded sub to see the new the Mid-Cayman Rise system "face to face".

"These places are extraordinary," he told BBC News.
"You see sights you can barely imagine - rocks covered in bacteria that fluoresce purple, green and blue, and very strange animals. It's a different world down there."

Dr Humphris said Alvin scientists often get asked - as astronauts do - to defend the value of sending people to risky places when robots could do much of this work.

"My answer to that is simple," she said.
"Watch a video of the Grand Canyon and then go there yourself; then you'll realise why we go to the bottom of the ocean with human-operated vehicles. It is this question of having an eye and brain actually looking in 3D at something. I think your whole perspective changes."

"There's a big difference between looking at something on a flat-screen TV and then going down and being there, and being able to see things within their environmental context."

Peter Girguis has no doubts about the need for a human-operated vehicle.
The Harvard University researcher is chair of the deep-submergence science committee.

He told reporters here: "Eighty percent of our biosphere - that is 80% of the portion of our planet that is habitable by life - is deep ocean, deeper than 1,000m.

"Everything that we typically think of, the continents and all that, is a minority.
And Alvin has been enabling us to study about two-thirds of that for many years now.
The Alvin upgrade promises to enable us to have a better capacity to go to deeper depths to study processes that we know are all interconnected.

"Our climate, the health of our ecosystems, the sustainability of our fisheries - all depend on processes that take place in the deep ocean."

Links :

• OurAmazingPlanet : Upgraded sub could reach 98 percent of ocean deep
• UNOLS : Alvin upgrade project imaging system

Free diver first to break 100m unassisted

On December 12, 2010, at 11:43am local time in the Bahamas,
New Zealander William Trubridge dove 100 meters into Dean's Blue Hole on Long Island
with a single breath of air and only his hands and feet to propel him down and up (no fins).

From TheGuardian / NZHerald

New Zealander William Trubridge this week became the first person to dive unassisted (without weights, fins or other aids) to a depth of 100m (328ft) on just one breath of air (held for 4 minutes, 10 seconds) only propelled by his arms and legs, diving down Dean's Blue Hole on Long Island in the Bahamas.

The famous French diver Jacques Mayol reached this depth in 1980 but used a weighted sled to descend and an inflated lift bag to return to the surface.

Trubridge broke the record on his second attempt of the day, after a bad start on his first try forced him to resurface.

"I entered the water and immediately started shivering. At the end of my breathe-up, as I turned to start the dive, some of the air in my lungs was forced into my mouth, and from there into my stomach. For a split-second I contemplated continuing, but it would have been foolhardy, so I aborted and rolled back onto the surface with a groan of dismay," he said.

Trying again after a short break, his body went into "autopilot" and he has few memories of the dive.

"I remember my depth alarm going off and pulling the tag from the bottom plate, 100 meters below the surface. I remember keeping my eyes half-closed and telling myself to 'relax' and 'flow' as I set off on the long swim back towards the light. And I remember erupting into celebration with my team the moment the judges displayed their white cards"

Freedriving is a dangerous sport and places intense pressure on the body.

"At 100 metres the pressure exerted by overhead water crushes [diver's] lungs to the size of small grapefruit, and the blood vessels inside them swell with blood in order to stop the lungs from imploding. The heart slows to 25 beats per minute, and [diver's] have to fight the narcotic effects of pressurised carbon dioxide and nitrogen - the so-called 'rapture of the deep' that tempts him towards a fateful sleep," said Joy Cottle from AIDA NZ, the body representing New Zealand freedivers.

Trubridge had already broken the record the day before, but was disqualified by the judges for breaching the rules.

"Yesterday I had already touched the mark and come back cleanly, but a technicality (not taking my noseclip off during the surface protocol at the end of the dive) meant that the dive was disqualified," he said.

It was Trubridge's 13th world-record.
He set his first record of 80 metres four years ago and since then has singlehandedly raised the world-record from 80 to 100 metres.

He dedicated today's dive to New Zealand's Hector's Dolphin, which is currently in danger of becoming extinct.

Trubridge, 30, grew up in Havelock North, but sailed the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific Ocean with his parents.
By age eight he was already diving to a depth of 15 metres.
Trubridge rediscovered free-diving when he was 22 and has spent hours a day underwater since then.

Here is a brief guide to "freediving":

▶ The pressure exerted by water at depths approaching 100m is so great that freedivers' lungs can be crushed to the size of a small grapefruit.

▶ Some freedivers use a special technique known as glosso- pharyngeal breathing to pack their lungs with more air as they plunge into the sea. Also known as "frog breathing", it involves using the vocal cords to force extra air into the lungs.

▶ Freediving dates back to at least 5400BC. Archaeological records from the period show Scandinavian hunters used a freediving technique to look for shellfish.

▶ While Trubridge was the first to dive to 100m without assistance, others have dived deeper with mechanical aids; Herbert Nitsch holds the record at 214m, which he achieved with the help of a weighted sled.

▶ The most unlikely freediving folk hero is Stathis Chatzi, who is feted for diving to a depth of 88m in 1913 to rescue a ship's anchor – despite suffering from emphysema.

Links :

• StuffNZ : Free-diver uses yoga to break world record
  
• YouTube : William Trubridge announcing "Project Hector" the 100 meter freediving world record attempt (training for Project Hector)
  
• YouTube : previous records 95m / 88m
• VerticalBlue
  

The oceans' SOS : conversation between Sylvia Earle and Jean-Michel Cousteau

Bob Evans of the Academy of Underwater Arts & Sciences brought together

ocean advocates Sylvia Earle and Jean-Michel Cousteau
to talk about the state of the ocean and what we can do to make a difference.
"The divers voice is an important voice " This conversation took place while the two were attending the Blue Ocean Film Festival in Monterrey, California August 2010.

From LosAngelesTimes

The planet's great communal resource provides protein sources and oxygen and is used for transportation, recreation and inspiration.
It's time to put it at the center of the climate change discussion.

The ocean is our global heat reservoir and one of two major carbon dioxide sinks.
If you agree that humans are trapping heat and carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere — and 53 years of rigorous observations at Scripps and other research institutions show that we are — then the ocean must be at the very center of the climate discussion. But it rarely is.

Consider Cancun: The negotiation text presented at the outset of the climate conference contained exactly one passing reference to the oceans, submerged in a Mariana Trench of footnotes.

Our stubborn addiction to burning coal, oil and natural gas is changing not only the composition of the atmosphere but the composition of the ocean as well.
The carbon dioxide those fuels pour into the air inexorably dissolves into the oceans, causing a process known as ocean acidification.
The oceans have absorbed 30% of the carbon dioxide that humans have ever produced, and they continue to absorb more each year.

This force-feeding has changed ocean chemistry.
As carbon dioxide is added to the ocean, it increases the amounts of dissolved hydrogen-carbonate ions and hydrogen ions (and hence acidity) but decreases the amount of carbonate ions.
By the end of the century, acidity will probably double from today's levels, unless we stop pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The increasingly scarce carbonate ions are the very ones marine invertebrates combine with calcium ions to make their shells.
Ocean acidification has been likened to an accelerated case of osteoporosis that afflicts creatures such as massive coral reefs and pteropods — tiny snails that are a key food of commercially important fish.
There is also evidence that increasing acidity disrupts the juvenile development of a variety of marine organisms, including clownfish and krill.
Marine organisms are wonderfully suited to adapt to changes in seawater chemistry, but never before in history have they been asked to do this so quickly.

Marine scientists in various countries, including China, Germany and the United States, are engaged in a variety of national research programs focusing on the important biological impacts of ocean acidification.
We need to document which fisheries, coral reefs and marine ecosystems will be affected first, and how long they might take to recover (if at all).
That takes time, but don't be fooled by the pat response: "We need more research first."
We know enough to act now.

Links :

• HuffingtonPost : What will you do with your Blue marble ?
• Sylvia Earle Alliance
  
• Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society