BRINE POOLS IN THE RED SEA : HYPER SALINITY and MICROBES : ANTI CANCER PROPERTIES

NATURE COM : BRINE POOLS IN THE RED SEA 

Excerpt: Despite their rarity and diminutive size, brine pools present intense oases of macrofaunal and microbial biodiversity in a deep-sea benthic environment that otherwise lacks in number and variety of species. Deep-sea brine pools are of intense scientific interest since their pervasive anoxia, low pH, and hypersalinity represent one of the most extreme habitable environments on Earth, perhaps offering clues to first life on our planet, and guiding the search for life beyond it. The significance of Red Sea brine pools has been further amplified with the discovery that the extremophile microbes that inhabit them can yield bioactive molecules with therapeutic potential, including antibacterial and anticancer properties

CAN FIREFIGHTERS USE OCEAN SALT WATER TO FIGHT THE CALIFORNIA FIRES?

The answer is that they do so, but in desperation, because the salt water is corrosive to equipment and the soil in which the salt water has been dumped is not friendly to plant life.  Some areas where ocean water has been dumped to put out a fire remain barren of plant life for years.  When urban sources for water are used up, fire fighters will use ocean water. 

-Siren

TIDE POOLS

 

OCEANOGRAPHY NEWS

SCIENCE DAILY - RESEARCH NEWS OCEANOGRAPHY

Hidden Threat: Global Underground Infrastructure Vulnerable to Sea-Level Rise

Apr. 15, 2024 — As sea levels rise, coastal groundwater is lifted closer to the ground surface while also becoming saltier and more corrosive. A recent study compiled research from experts worldwide showing that in ...

A LAKE IS FRESHWATER BUT A SEA IS SALTWATER?

 Do the names of various bodies of water tell us if the water is salty or not? 

The Great Lakes are freshwater.  (And hold about 20% of the water on earth.)

The Great Lakes are named Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario,

The Great Salt Lake in Utah is salty, though called a lake.

The largest salt water lake in the world is named The Caspian Sea.

Do a little research and learn how a body of water becomes "salty."

MUDLARK by LARA MAIKLEM - SIREN's LINK TO SEA BOOK REVIEW - SEA FOSSILS

What a fascinating book.  For those of you who like to go to the water's edge and see what you can find - besides sea shells and sea weeds washed ashore - this book may inspire you to think ahead about where you can go and why.  Lara Maiklem's hobby as a mudlark, a person who finds things washed up by river tides, has made her an expert about the way the Thames River, the river that goes through the city of London to the ocean, flows.  Most surprising to me was that this is a river that has tides.  With the ebb and flow of the tides, various objects have been deposited, others have no doubt been washed out to sea for hundreds of years. So she and other mudlarkers make it a point of frequently visiting various areas where the river flows to see what has been brought up, what is embedded, and her finds include ancient coins, painted tiles, and a variety of objects like needles, pins, thimbles, and beads, religious objects and weapons.  As most of these objects were made of natural materials - not plastic - they don't threaten the living creatures of those waters so much though of course there is a history of sea creatures becoming extinct over time. It's those creatures though that I want to excerpt about. 

Page 53  Excerpt:  Encased in clay and lying among the gravel on the foreshore are the fossilized remains of the creatures that inhabited those prehistoric seas.  The pencil-like internal shells of belemnites, ancient extinct squid, that swam in shoals over 66 million years ago; bivalves the size and shape of cockles, frozen in stone; and 'devil's toenails', an extinct form of marine oyster that lived in the sediment of the seabed.  At Warden's Point on the Estuary, fossilized crabs, lobsters, shells, twigs, and shark teeth fall from the low cliffs of London clay onto the beach where they can be collected by the handful, and occasionally smoothed pieces of yellow amber will wash ashore where the Estuary and the North Sea mingle. Years ago, before people knew what fossils were, they were shrouded in folklore and assigned all kinds of quasi-religious and mystical associations. One of the most commonly found fossils in the south of England, and along the Thames' foreshore, are echinoids.  The colloquial name for echinoid is 'sea urchin', which comes from the old country name for hedgehog....

LEARN ABOUT GULLS FROM SAVE COASTAL WILDLIFE ORG

SAVE COASTAL WILD LIFE ORG : HAVE WE MISSED THE POINT ABOUT SEAGULLS? by Joseph Reynolds

EXCERPT: Gulls are extraordinary birds.  They are able to fly long distances and glide over the open ocean for hours in search of food.  Gulls can fly as fast as 28 MPH. They can even drink salty ocean water when thirsty  The birds have evolved to have a special pair of glands right above their eyes to flush the salt form their body through openings in their bill.  This enables a gull to spend several days forging for food atop salty ocean waters without needing to return to land just to get a drink of freshwater...

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Check out this interesting article!  Too often we forget that the birds we see around sea cliffs and beaches are part of the ocean ecology.

ENDANGERED SPECIES - AN IMPORTANT ISSUE

While we're concerned about drought on land and having enough water for drinking, bathing, cooking... never mind watering lawns!  And having enough fresh water so that farmers can water their crops and their animals will have enough too ... so we can eat... live... is of utmost importance,  there is always evidence of environmental changes that effect FISH and SEA CREATURES in fresh and salt water.  Over the next few days I'll be posting links to some important news articles that cover these issues.

CALGARY SALT WATER A BILLION YEARS OLD

CALGARY HERALD : WORLD OLDEST WATER

"...An international research team reported Wednesday that miners near Timmins are tapping into an ancient underground oasis that may harbour prehistoric microbes. The water flowing out of fractures and bore holes in one mine near Timmins dates back more than a billion years, perhaps 2.6 billion, making it the oldest water known to exist on Earth, says the team that details the discovery in the journal Nature..."

WHAT CHEMICALS MAKE UP SALT WATER IN OUR OCEANS ?

ARE YOU REALLY GOOD WITH CHEMISTRY? Then Link to this WATER ENCYLOPEDIA SITE NOW and take a look!

HEALTH BENEFITS OF SALT WATER

We all know that eating too much salt can pickle our innards - or lead us to high blood pressure.

But what about inhaling a little salt water to keep asthma away?

Link to this site that has a lot of interesting information about the HEALTH BENEFITS of SALT WATER!