New app allows public to track great white shark movements

Floating Robot tech lets you track great white sharks swimming along California Coast in Real Time

(CBS SFBayArea)

From TheWeatherNetwork 

New technology allows the public to track the movement of great white sharks as they travel along the Central Coast.
These new tracking devices might give swimmers a little sense of relief, but that's not what their intention is.

Marine biologists have been working for years to learn more about the behavior and swim patterns of great whites.
Marine biologist Dr. Randy Kochevar has made shark encounters a focus of his research.
Following the migrating patterns of sharks, he found the great whites along the Central Coast spend half of their time close to shore and half in deeper water.
"Once we started to identify these hot spots where they come and go to we started exploring new technologies that would allow us to monitor their coming and going from these areas," says Dr. Kochevar, marine biologist with Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station.

This map shows the tracks of the currently deployed Wave Glider, which is equipped with an acoustic receiver which is listening for white sharks carrying acoustic tags.

The current position of the glider is indicated by a yellow marker with a star; previous locations are indicated with green markers, and shark locations are in red.

Wave Glider Overview (Liquid Robotics)

To track the sharks marine biologists use a device called a wave glider.

The glider, made in the Silicon Valley is powered by solar panels.
Right now, the glider is centered just north of Santa Cruz at Ano Nuevo State Park.
By mapping a figure eight pattern it's detected all these great whites in red (see video above) within the past 12 months, and for the first time ever, the public can see within seconds where a great white might be swimming.

Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Stanford use a seal decoy to lure the sharks in so they can tag them.
So far, more than 200 sharks have been tagged and tracked by the glider and buoys posted at shark hot spots up and down the coast.
"We will be able to manage them in a way that is sustainable so that whether its our kids or grandkids or their grandkids that they will be able to come to the ocean and know," explains Dr. Kochevar. "That there is this abundant and diverse ecosystem right here."

It may not be what you want to see in the ocean, but sharks are an important part of marine life that these scientists want you to understand.
Dr. Kochevar says that the number of great white sharks in the Central Coast is actually smaller than they thought. There are as few as 250 along the California region.
He says they don't know if that number means the population has increased or declined, so now they are gathering data with this new technology to keep a closer look.

 Current Track Map
This map shows the tracks from tags that have reported within the past 30 days.

If you're interested in detecting a shark along the central coast you can go to TOPP.org.
Click on "Buoys" to see a list of the most current sharks in that area.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : Liquid Robotics to launch wave gliders to collect oceanographic data / Liquid Robotics to usher era of smart oceans with autonomous robots / Swimming robot reaches Australia after record-breaking trip / Hundreds of floating robots could soon surveil the oceans
• Mpora : Shark Attacks Are On The Rise.... Is This The App Which Could Cut Them Out?

What are the mystery 'alien' balls found on the ocean floor? Scientists are baffled by manganese rocks discovered in the Atlantic

The R/V Sonne, a German reserach ship, was a couple of hundred miles east of Barbados when a net designed to capture a variety of marine life instead caught ancient balls off manganese ore

From DailyMail by Ellie Zolfagharifard

• Known as manganese nodules, the large lumps contain valuable metal
• Scientists have been attempting to explain their origin since the 1870s
• Researchers have now found largest patch of manganese in the Atlantic
• One theory is they formed from chemical reactions and bacteria in water
• Another suggests nodules were created by metals from volcanic vents
• Analysis could also unlock the secrets to our planet's changing climate

Ever since they were discovered in 1873, scientists have been trying to find out the origin of the millions of potato-sized metal balls that carpet the world's oceans.
Known as manganese nodules, these lumps contain valuable metals that scientists someday hope to harvest from the sea floor.
Now German scientists could be closer to solving the mystery of their origin after stumbling on the largest patch of manganese nodules ever found in the Atlantic.

Ever since they were discovered in 1873, scientists have been trying to find out the origin of potato-sized metal balls that carpet the world's oceans.

Now German scientists could be closer to solving that mystery after stumbling on the largest patch of manganese nodules ever found in the Atlantic

With growth rates of between one to five millimetres in a million years, some of the nodules could be 10 million years old, the researchers said.
'I was surprised, because this is generally not the place you think of for manganese nodules,' said Colin Devey, chief scientist for the expedition at the Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research told LiveScience.

With growth rates of between one to five millimetres in a million years, some of the nodules could be 10 million years old, the researchers said.

Pictured is a stock image of a manganese nodule

These metal balls consist of the manganese, iron and other coveted metals such as copper, cobalt or zinc

Manganese nodules have been found in every ocean, but are most common in the Pacific Ocean.
These particular nodules were discovered in waters roughly 16,400ft and 18,000ft (5,000 and 5,500 metres) deep.

In the Clarion-Clipperton Zone are the largest known manganese nodule deposits.

Here, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) has granted 13 research licenses

One theory as to how they formed is through chemical reactions in seawater that were boosted by microbes.
Another suggests the nodules were created by precipitation of metals from seawater, especially from volcanic thermal vents.
These metal balls consist of the manganese and contain iron and other coveted metals such as copper, cobalt or zinc.
Since the 1970s, they have been considered a possible source of raw materials.
But due to the large water depths and the associated technical complexity and potential environmental damages, no commercial exploitation is currently in sight.
At the same time, manganese nodules are scientifically of great interest since they can be used as climate and environmental archives.
Manganese nodules grow like a pearl shell around a nucleus and as a result record information on the prevailing environmental conditions.
Since the nodules grow very slowly, they provide a record of the world's early climate history.
Scientists are now hoping to analyse the nodules in greater detail to understand exactly how they formed.
They say greater analysis could also unlock the secrets to our planet's changing climate.

Manganese nodules have been found in every ocean, but are most common in the Pacific Ocean. One theory as to how they came to be is that they were formed by chemical reactions in seawater boosted by microbes

Links :

• BBC : Deep sea mining licences issued
• MIT : Analyzing the promise of Deep Sea Mining
• Geomar : Looking for deep-sea animals – and finding manganese nodules / Deep-Sea Mining: What are the risks?

A new breed : get Miles away

A NEW BREED: Get Miles Away - Part 1/5 from The Creator Class

Coral city

Coral City from The Creators Project

Take an exclusive look at the process behind Coral Morphologic's living artworks, colorful reefs created using coral polyps native to Miami.
Watch as the scientific art collective explores the visual storytelling potential of coral reef organisms through film, multimedia and site-specific artworks.
Additionally, learn how rising sea levels, combined with government dredging projects, are impacting not only corals, but the entire fate of Miami.

Mapping landscapes in the deep ocean

Researchers at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have developed a new, automated method for classifying hundreds of kilometres of the deep sea floor, in a way that is more cost efficient, quicker and more objective than previously possible.

From NOC

Currently there is very little information about the geographic distribution of life on the sea floor.
This is largely because of the practical difficulty in accessing creatures which live at such a great depth in the ocean.
However, this research soon to be published in the journal Marine Geology, reveals a new method of estimating this distribution using a combination of: submarine mapping technology, statistics and a ‘landscape’ ecology technique called ‘Niche Theory’, which is generally used on land.

The Niche Theory states that biodiversity is driven by spatial variability in environmental conditions, i.e. the greater the range of habitats, the greater the biodiversity.
The lead author of this study, Khaira Ismail from the University of Southampton, has used this concept to create broad-scale, full coverage maps of the sea floor.
The objective of these maps is to estimate the location of biodiversity hotspots, by identifying areas where the deep-sea landscapes are relatively more varied.

Bathymetry map of Lisbon–Setúbal and Cascais Canyons offshore Portugal, overlain by TOBI sidescan sonar imagery coverage.

Contour interval is 500 m.

The inset map shows the location of the study area relative to the location of Portugal.

Dr Veerle Huvenne, from the NOC, said “by informing us of where to look and where to plan more detailed surveys, this new method will help to make our deep-sea research more targeted and efficient, by advancing our understanding of life in the deep ocean, which at the moment is still very limited.”

These maps cover areas approximately 200km across, and have pixel sizes around 25m.
They are created using information on the topography and sediment type of the sea floor, collected from a multi-beam echo sounder and a side scan sonar, respectively.
The resulting map is then analysed in order to break down the sea floor into a series of zones, using statistical analysis to identify distinct ‘geomorphological terrains’ in an objective and repeatable way.

3D views of the Portuguese Canyons from south.

The figure shows variations of bathymetric position index analysis (top) and slope analysis (bottom) resulting from using two different length scales.

The local length scale is 25 m (initial pixel size) and broad length scale at 225 m.

Note the different features delineated at the different analysis scales.

Results from local length scale contained detail features but noisier whereas broader length scale shows the gross canyon morphology.

Khaira said “using statistical methods to identify these ‘terrain zones’ allows us to be more objective than if we were picking them out by hand.
This objectivity means that the results are consistent and repeatable, which allows different areas of the sea floor to be compared more easily.”

An expert visual interpretation of Setúbal Canyon from sidescan sonar imagery collected in 2005 used for visual comparison with automated marine landscape map.

A, B, C, and D are zoomed figures of the visual interpretation map from sidescan sonar imagery (left) in the selected area (outline in black) compared to automated marine landscape map (right).

 The expert interpretation in this area lacked contiguity and coverage, although manual delineation allows individual features to be picked out there is always a possibility of it being missed due to human error. In comparison, the automated technique produced a more consistent map but often too generalized (i.e.: small features are often grouped together).

This research forms part of the €1.4M European Research Council funded CODEMAP project, and was applied in the Lisbon-Setúbal and Cascais Canyons, off the Portuguese coast.
These submarine canyons were classified into six marine ‘seascapes’, based on their geomorphological features.

Future work will use submarine robot cameras to take photos and videos of life in the deep-sea areas that have been subjected to this mapping technique.
This will allow researchers to start to identify new deep sea habitats.