f you want to see something really wonderful, then
the Elephant rock is ideal place for you.
This rock is truly one of the
amazing natural sculptures on mother earth.
The Elephant Rock is a
natural rock formation found on the island of Heimaey (meaning Home
Island) in Iceland’s Vestmannaeyjar archipelago.
The Elephant Rock is a natural rock formation (meaning Home Island)
in Iceland's Vestmannaeyjar archipelago
Heimaey is most
inhabited island in Iceland with 4,500 residents in an area of 5.2
square miles.
The beautiful Heimaey is actually a home to Eldfell (Means
“Mountain of Fire”).
This 660 foot high volcano has spewed lava on
numerous occasions, leading many to believe it is the cause of the
Elephant Rock
The Island having a scenario such as this could
have been the cause of the huge rock that happened to be shaped just
like an elephant.
What a glorious mother sculpture.
I guess, you won’t
believe this wonder of nature, but this is real rock not Photoshop.
Besides the amazing Elephant Rock, you might see Keiko, the whale from
the Free Willy films as this was where he was actually set free, and
also summer is when the island becomes populated by millions and
millions of adorable puffins!
If you’re planning to visit Iceland, then
Elephant Rock is a must place to see.
Localization with the GeoGarage platform (Icelandic nautical charts)
Heimaey island in Iceland
This natural rock formation off the coast of Iceland, impresses the
travelers.
It’s a drone of the deep.
A soft-bodied robot that swims like a manta ray has been engineered to spy on underwater creatures without disturbing them.
The mostly transparent robot has no motor or other rigid machinery and is much faster than other soft robotic fish.
The goal is to use the robot to explore underwater areas, says Tiefeng Li at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.
It could be used to investigate a submerged ship or plane wreck, or survey coral reefs.
“The soft body will make it easy for the robot to sneak through reefs without damaging them,” he says.
Robots are increasingly being constructed from soft, stretchy materials to make them more resilient and more compatible with living beings.
However, powering them without traditional hard-edged circuit boards and motors is a challenge.
Manta ray : a natural source of inspiration
To get around using a motor in the manta-ray-inspired robot, Li and his colleagues made artificial fin muscles from a flexible polymer called dielectric elastomer.
A silicone-encased lithium battery supplies a cyclic voltage that squeezes and releases that material, causing the muscles to bend up and down.
This flaps the ray’s fins, made of a thin silicone film, so that it moves through the water.
The rest of the remotely controlled robot – which weighs 90 grams and has a wing span of 22 centimetres – is made of a silicone body and tail for steering.
All components are transparent, except for the small battery pack and two electromagnets that help to manoeuvre the tail.
The soft robot inspired by the manta ray.
Image: Li et al
Soft but spritely
At top speed, the robot can swim 6 centimetres per second.
This beats the previous record for soft, untethered underwater robots by 3 centimetres per second, but is still significantly slower than similar-sized fish.
The researchers showed that the electronic ray can tolerate temperatures between 0.4°C and 74°C, swim for 3 hours with a single battery charge, and carry a small video camera to monitor its surroundings.
The flexibility and transparent disguise of the robot ray should allow it to monitor underwater environments without disturbing or damaging them, says Li.
“Ocean creatures will feel more comfortable with it than hard, non-transparent robots,” he says.
The underwater electronics do not pose an electrocution risk to ocean life because the robot’s circuitry is set up so the surrounding water functions as the grounding electrode – the end that dissipates electrical energy.
“This is a very good idea,” says Gursel Alici at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
A previous project (2012)
A robotic ray tested in the deep end of UVA's Aquatic Fitness Center pool.
Although other types of robotic swimmers have been made using soft parts – including ones that mimic octopuses, fish and jellyfish – the manta ray is a unique take on this concept, says Alici.
It remains to be seen whether it will have practical applications, he says.
Two years ago, Palau created one of the largest marine reserves on the planet—and it's paying off.
It stands to reason that if you protect the ocean, ecosystems will thrive.
Now, scientists have hard data to back up that logical assumption, thanks to a sweeping study of marine reserves in the island nation of Palau.
Palau island with the GeoGarage platform (NGA chart)
Nearly two years ago, Palau officially designated 193,000 square miles of its maritime territory as a fully protected marine reserve, where no fishing or mining can take place.
The reserve became the sixth-largest of its kind in the world—while the island of Palau is smaller than New York City, its marine protected area became larger than the state of California.
Palau's vibrant corals are thriving, despite some of the warmest and most acidic waters in the world. In this virtual reality experience, Lukas Isall from the Palau International Research Centre explains how unlocking the mystery of Palau's corals might help in the fight against climate change.
In a statement made at the time, Palau's President Tommy Remengesau, Jr., said the move was essential to conserving the island's livelihood: "Island communities have been among the hardest hit by the threats facing the ocean. Creating this sanctuary is a bold move that the people of Palau recognize as essential to our survival."
Now, science has confirmed the case: In a paper published March 30 in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers from the Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii report the results of their efforts set out to monitor just how much positive impact a marine protected area could have.
The Pristine Seas team surveyed a lake harboring millions of jellyfish Palau's greatest tourist attraction.
photo : Enric Sala, National Geographic Creative
Their study focused heavily on the amount of biomass—fish and so-called benthic organisms living on the sea floor—that were present in Palau’s protected areas.
To disturb the marine life as little as possible, the researchers didn’t take any samples and instead derived their results from photographs and direct visual estimates.
They found that protected waters had twice the number of fish as unprotected waters and five times the number of predatory fish.
As a key food source for other predators, a healthy fish population indicates a thriving ecosystem.
"What we measured confirmed that no-take marine reserves help increase the biomass of fish, as we've seen in other areas around the world," says Enric Sala, a National Geographic Explorer-in-residence who worked on the study.
Protected areas allow Palau’s fish to produce more offspring, which in turn produces a number of benefits for local fishers.
The study suggests that when biomass increases inside protected areas, the resulting spillover of adult fish populations into non-protected waters leads to more abundant catches for local fisheries.
Sala notes that this successful conservation was attributable not only to policy instated by the local government, but also to the culture of conservation among the island's inhabitants.
Palau is a collection of around 250 islands located in the Pacific Rex
The nation has no military with which to enforce regulations.
Instead, local conservation efforts evolved from a thousand-year-old tradition called bul.
The practice takes place when Palau's Council of Chiefs places certain reefs off limits to allow fish undisturbed space to breed and feed.
Heeding the sensitivity of fish during these periods ensured populations would be sufficient for feeding local communities at later times in the year.
In Gorgeous Palau, Explorers Find Wonders Worth Protecting National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala led an expedition in September 2014 to document the stunning biodiversity of the Republic of Palau's waters and assess how a marine protected area could help safeguard the ecosystems of this paradise for generations to come.
The expedition was part of National Geographic's Pristine Seas project.
Palau depends heavily on a healthy marine ecosystem.
It has one of the highest rates of biodiversity on the planet, and a significant portion of its economic revenue is generated by environmental tourism.
Of course, Palau isn’t the only country to benefit from healthy marine resources, and only 1.6 percent of the world's oceans are protected.
The researchers hope other governments will take notice of how beneficial these protected areas can be.
“We need as many more reserves as possible in remote and in populated places, large and not so large," saysid Sala. "There is no time to waste."
Correction: The area surveyed for this study took place off the coast of Palau. The marine sanctuary is located farther offshore. Scientists believe their findings in protected areas near Palau's populated regions mean the reserve will yield positive results. Links :
