Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
Iron dust, the rarest nutrient for most marine life, can be washed down by rivers or blown out to sea or--a surprising new study finds--float up from the sea floor in the material spewed from hydrothermal vents.
The discovery connects life at the surface to events occurring at extreme depths and pressures. The two worlds were long assumed to have little interaction.
Iron trapped in this way does not rust. For the scientists, discovering shiny iron in the ocean was like fishing a dry sponge out of a bath.
The metal's purity has practical value. Aquatic organisms metabolize pure iron much more easily than its rusted form. How much captured iron floats into surface waters remains unknown. But any that does would nourish ocean life more efficiently than the oxidized iron from regular sources.
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Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
Hundreds of species live in both polar seas, despite an 11,000-kilometer distance in between. So finds the census of Marine Life.
Among many other findings, the scientists also documented evidence of cold waterloving species shifting towards both poles to escape rising ocean temperatures.
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Monday, February 16th, 2009
Read about some great diving in India in the new SCUBA Travel section. The best dive sites and recommended diving centres in the Andaman Islands, Lakshadweep Islands and Goa.
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Friday, February 13th, 2009
Tony Groom talks about the book of his his underwater experiences as a Royal Navy Mine Clearance and commericial diver. "Day and night for about 10 months, I wrote and re-wrote about my diving life. About the intensive training the Navy required to become a 'Sneaky Beaky' attack swimmer. Getting trained in re-breathers that give out no bubbles, enabling you to sabotage ships, or work on mines unseen and undetected..."
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Thursday, February 12th, 2009
The European Commission has launched a Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks. The aim is to rebuild shark stocks and to set down guidelines for the sustainable management of the fisheries, including where shark are taken as by-catch. The plan also hopes to increase knowledge of shark stocks and shark fisheries.
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Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
Two American divers who went missing for seven hours on the Great Barrier Reef on Friday ignored instructions, dive boat operators Mike Ball of Mike Ball Dive Expeditions said. The pair - a man and a woman believed to be in their 40s - failed to surface at the end of an hour-long dive on Ribbon Reef Number 10, off the coast of Lizard Island, about 10am.
They were plucked from the water after being found floating eight nautical miles north of the dive site about 5.10pm.
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