Acidifying Ocean

Ocean Carbon Cycle

Here's an interesting blog post from Scientific American.  It includes a map of surface ocean pH.  Water chemistry is something we talked about extensively at the beginning of the year.

Blog - Acid Ocean Map

Touchdown!!

After an amazing journey, ESA's Rosetta Probe has planted its lander Philae on the surface of Comet 67P.  Check out the resources below:

- ScienceDaily.com article - ScienceDaily - Rosetta

The Pacific Garbage Patch

Masked Angelfish

The Pacific Ocean, and every ocean for that matter, is filled with floating trash.  Trash from careless people, trash from material washed overboard in storms, and derelict (lost/abandoned) fishing gear.

I just saw this article on the NOAA website.  It's about the NOAA Fisheries program to remove this debris from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine Sanctuary.  This is one of (if not the) the largest protected areas in the world ocean.

The article is a little disappointing due to the amount of debris found and removed each year.  However, take some time to explore the area using Google Earth.  Make sure you have the Panoramio layer turned on for some amazing pictures.

Read on for more...NOAA Article - Removing Derelict Fishing Gear

Here's the homepage for the sanctuary: http://www.fpir.noaa.gov/MNM/mnm_papahanaumokuakea.html

New Coral Species Discovered

Map of Gulf of the Farallones Nat. Marine Sanctuary
Image Credit - NOAA

California state and federal marine scientists have discovered new species of deep-sea coral while doing explorations near the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank marine sanctuaries.

Read on for more...

NOAA - New Deep Sea Corals

Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Home