#oceanography

[the-briny-bulletin]

Cryptid fish that has only been seen once and never again that may or may not exist but well never know my beloved

[todays-xkcd]

Benthic Santas weren't even discovered until the 1970s, but many scientists now believe Christmas may have originally developed around hydrothermal vents and only later migrated to the surface.

Hydrothermal Vents [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Top label:] Smoke [Middle label:] Chimneys [Bottom label:] Santas being digested

[Caption below the panel:] Ocean fact: Hydrothermal vent black smokers actually evolved as predatory chimney mimics to feed on benthic Santas.

[brtss]

Where I am, mentally.

[strawlessandbraless]

Siphonophore rainbow 🌈

Love to sea it 🌊

[hadeantaiga]

THESE ARE NOT PLANTS

I was going put together a cute meme about how seaweed/kelp isn't a plant, it's macroalgae. But to do that, I wanted to show a photo of some ocean life that actually are plants. The problem is that the first two sources that come up when you do a google search for "ocean plants" include multiple kinds of algae, as well as ANEMONES AND CORALS. CORALS AND ANEMONES ARE ANIMALS.

So now, the theme of this post has changed from "Kelp isn't a plant" to:

"NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE PLANTS"

Kelp are a type of macro algae from the Protista kingdom. Protists are not animals, plants or fungi.

Anemone and corals are from the Metazoa sub-kingdom, aka they are animals. They are also not plants. No, not even the corals that host photosynthetic organisms within them - because the zooxanthellae they host are protists, like the kelp.

[kamanihar]

I hope you live louder

[bellaluvspeace]

:3

[mindblowingscience]

The Gulf Stream is almost certainly weakening, a new study has confirmed. The flow of warm water through the Florida Straits has slowed by 4% over the past four decades, with grave implications for the world's climate.  The ocean current starts near Florida and threads a belt of warm water along the U.S. East Coast and Canada before crossing the Atlantic to Europe. The heat it transports is essential for maintaining temperate conditions and regulating sea levels.  But this stream is slowing down, researchers wrote in a study published Sept. 25 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.  "This is the strongest, most definitive evidence we have of the weakening of this climatically-relevant ocean current," lead-author Christopher Piecuch, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, said in a statement.

Continue Reading

[nemfrog]

Plate II. Discovery reports. 1941. Falkland Islands,

Internet Archive

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Simply put, the sea star, also known as starfish, appears to be mostly just a head.

Molecular analysis of its genes suggests its ancestors evolved to lose their trunk.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/11/01/starfish-study-evolution-gene-sequencing/

[science70]

Marine biologist and oceanographer Sylvia Earle prepares to dive in a JIM suit near Oahu, Hawaii, 1979.

[the-briny-bulletin]

Did you know that 4000 metres bellow the ocean there are chemosynthetic bacteria that are specifically evolved to digest the wood of trees that have grown on land?

The wood on the sea floor can come from trees that fall into lakes and end up in the ocean, or wooden ships that have sunken. (Called 'Wood-falls')

The reason why deep marine organisms are able to digest wood despite never seeing the light of day, let alone a plant - since plants are unable to grow in the deep ocean because of a lack of sunlight - is because the ocean is so isolated and scarce of food that when a new food source is suddenly available, organisms rapidly evolve to be able to eat it.

This is called 'Adaptive Radiation', and can also occur on isolated islands.

[todays-xkcd]

Shipping times vary. Same-ocean delivery may only take a few years, but delivery from the Weddell Sea in Antarctica may take multiple decades, and molecules meant for inland seas like the Mediterranean may be returned as undeliverable by surface currents.

Oceanography Gift [Explained]

Transcript Under the Cut

[Cueball and Megan are standing thigh deep, at either edge of a stretch of water between two steep but walkable shorelines.

[Cueball, at the left, is apparently opening bottles of water and pouring them into the sea while recording himself.] Cueball: Happy birthday! Cueball: I got you these water molecules. [Sound effects:] (click) (pour)

[The water between has a morass of short swirling arrows indicating movement. In the air above this there is a square-bracketted 'label'] [Label:] 10 years pass

[Megan, at the right, is dipping bottles into the water to fill them] Megan: Aww, thank you! [Sound effect:] (scoop)

[Text below comic:] Global surface ocean connectivity times are ≤10 years (Jönsson & Watson, 2016, DOI:10.1038/ncomms11239), so if you're willing to plan ahead, you can pour water into the ocean while wishing someone a happy birthday, and then in 10 years let them know they can pick up their gift at the nearest coastline.

[a-book-of-creatures]

This children's book on oceanography had no need to make the cover this badass, and yet they went all out on it. Legends

[strawlessandbraless]

Oh to be a Dumbo Octopus without a care 🐙

The dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis) is a deep sea animal that lives on the ocean floor at extreme depths of 9,800 to 13,000 feet.

Females usually find a mate around their second birthday and take a seamen packet from the male so they can fertilize their eggs on the go when they please. They can even get pregnant while being pregnant, they’re basically always pregnant.

Love to sea it 🌊

[clockworkbibliophile]

beach day