SIREN IS SWIMMING AROUND THE INTERNET - HER BLOG POSTS START BELOW....


3/27/13

ANTARCTIC WHALE SKELETON and NINE NEW DEEP SEA SPECIES

LA TIMES SCIENCE : First Antarctic whale skeleton turns up nine new deep-sea species link to full article and pictures!  By Amina Khan

"Whale falls — when the body of a deceased whale sinks to the bottom of the ocean — can become an oasis rich in resources for deep-sea life. That ecosystem develops in stages: First, swimmers such as sharks, hagfish and crustaceans will gnaw off the flesh. Next, other hungry critters will break down the remaining soft tissues. Then chemical-consuming microorganisms will break down the waste sulfide left by previous generations, a process that may take decades."







3/23/13

SOUNDINGS - THE REMARKABLE STORY OF MARIE THARP, the GEOLOGIST WHO MAPPED THE OCEAN FLOOR

Just heard of this new book, which sounds exciting!  Marie Tharp dedicated more than 20 years of her career to the Lamont Geological Observatory.


Link to the author HALI FELT here!  "Her maps of the ocean floor have been called “one of the most remarkable achievements in modern cartography”, yet no one knows her name... Before Marie Tharp, geologist and gifted draftsperson, most people thought the ocean floor was a vast expanse of nothingness."

If you can't afford to purchase this book, be sure to ask your local library to buy a copy for circulation. 

3/14/13

STRANGE SCIENCE'S ILLUSTRATED STORY OF STRANGE SEA CREATURES by EARLY OCEAN EXPLORERS

STRANGE SCIENCE : SEA MONSTERS : Pics and Stories link here

This is an interesting article full of pictures from the 1400's and forward. Some of the strange creatures that were drawn and written about.
One of the illustrations.  Called MonkFish... Looks to me like someone tried to put people clothes on the fish.  Year: 1854 by Scientist: Japetus Steenstrup, this illustration now appears in: The Search for the Giant Squid by Richard Ellis

Excerpt: In the 16th century, two naturalists, Rondelet and Pierre Belon, produced descriptions of animals they termed the Sea Monk, or monk-fish. (Historian William M. Johnson has noted that the sea monk bears a striking resemblance to Saint Francis of Assisi.) Centuries later, a very talented naturalist, Japetus Steenstrup, gave a presentation in which he compared Rondelet's illustration (on the left) and Belon's illustration (on the right) to the likeness of a squid captured in 1853. He also took into consideration a 16th-century description of the Sea Monk by Conrad Gesner. Steenstrup made an amazing deduction: "Could we, given these bits of information of how the Monk was conceived at that time, come so near to it that we could recognize to which of nature's creatures it should most probably be assigned? The Sea Monk is firstly a cephalopod."

3/12/13

SEA MONSTERS : INTERACTIVE MAP FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

From December 2005 came the National Geographic Sea Monster interactive.
ZOMMIFY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SEA MONSTER MAP  link here!

Giant Squid and other Oceanic Mysteries always make me wonder if Sea Monsters were real.  I was told long ago that they were put on maps not because of sightings but because of the fear sailors felt when they went into then uncharted territories of the sea.  Frankly, oceanic dinosaurs wouldn't surprise me.