Earth Changes

Coral Reefs Found Growing In Cold, Deep Ocean

Science Daily
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:44 UTC

Imagine descending in a submarine to the ice-cold, ink-black depths of the ocean, 800 metres under the surface of the Atlantic. Here the tops of the hills are covered in large coral reefs. NIOZ-researcher Furu Mienis studied the formation of these unknown cold-water relatives of the better-known tropical corals.

© Marc Lavalije, NIOZ
Example of the cold-water corals being studied in the Atlantic Ocean at depths of six hundred to a thousand metres.

Furu Mienis studied the development of carbonate mounds dominated by cold-water corals in the Atlantic Ocean at depths of six hundred to a thousand metres. These reefs can be found along the eastern continental slope from Morocco to Norway, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and on the western continental slope along the east coast of Canada and the United States. Mienis studied the area to the west of Ireland along the edges of the Rockall Trough.

Hurricane Ike Caused Underwater Damage To Galveston

Science Daily
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:28 UTC

Conducting a rapid response research mission after Hurricane Ike, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin surveyed the inlet between Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, discovering the hurricane significantly reshaped the seafloor and likely carried an enormous amount of sand and sediment out into the Gulf.

© University of Texas at Austin
Before-and-after bathymetric images of the shell-gravel ridges in the Bolivar Roads inlet off Big Reef (at the northeast tip of Galveston Island), overlaid on satellite photograph.

The ongoing research could help coastal communities gauge the effectiveness of their sometimes controversial efforts to replenish eroding sand along shorelines while revealing the role storms play in building and eroding barrier islands such as Galveston.

Roads Bring Death And Fear To Forest Elephants

Science Daily
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:15 UTC

Why did the elephant cross the road? It didn't according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Save the Elephants that says endangered forest elephants are avoiding roadways at all costs. The authors of the study believe that these highly intelligent animals now associate roads with danger - in this case poaching, which is rampant in Central Africa's Congo Basin.

© Stephen Blake, Courtesy Wildlife Conservation Society
Why did the elephant cross the road? It didn't according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Save the Elephants that says endangered forest elephants are avoiding roadways at all costs.

According to the study, which appears in the October 27th issue of the journal Public Library of Science (PLoSONE), forest elephants have adopted a "siege mentality," forcing populations to become increasingly confined and isolated. This in turn reduces these normally far-ranging animals' ability to find suitable habitat; thereby threatening long-term conservation efforts.

Storm drops more than foot of snow on Sierra peaks

Martin Griffith
Associated Press
Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:29 UTC

Reno, Nevada - A storm dropped as much as 15 inches of snow in the Sierra Nevada, hastening the state of the ski season but bogging down traffic on mountain highways.

The Boreal resort atop Donner Summit reported 12 to 15 inches of new snow from late Monday into Tuesday, and said it plans to open Thursday. Alpine Meadows resort just north of Lake Tahoe reported as much as 14 inches of snow during the night, and hopes to open Nov. 26.

"Winter has made an entrance," said David Thatcher, snowmaking manager at Alpine Meadows.

Governor declares agricultural disaster in 5 counties

KSL News
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:30 UTC

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman today declared six Utah counties agricultural disaster areas.

The declaration affects farmers and ranchers in Garfield, Millard, Sanpete, Kane, Piute and Box Elder counties who have been hit hard by extreme weather conditions.

Saving The Endangered Tasmanian Devil In Australia

Science Daily
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:42 UTC

University of Adelaide zoologist Dr Jeremy Austin will lead a national project to help save the endangered Tasmanian devil from extinction.

Dr Austin and colleagues from SA Zoos and the Tasmanian Government will spend the next three years establishing a conservation program and working to suppress the infectious cancer, devil facial tumour disease, which is ravaging Australia's largest living marsupial carnivore.

The Tasmanian devil is not only a key tourism icon for Australia's most southern State, but also ecologically critical to Tasmania's native ecosystem.

"Extinction of the species is a possibility within the next two decades unless disease spread can be stopped," says Dr Austin.

Flood toll rises, rains resume in Hanoi

Associated Press
Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:57 UTC

Hanoi, Vietnam - The death toll from several days of flooding in Vietnam rose to 83 on Tuesday as authorities announced they had recovered 17 more bodies.

Disaster officials said they recovered two more bodies in the capital, Hanoi, 12 more in nearby northern provinces, and three more in central Vietnam, areas still suffering from flooding caused by heavy rains last week.

Showers resumed in northern and central Vietnam on Tuesday, and forecasters predicted several more days of rain but said it would be lighter than the downpours that soaked the region over the weekend. The weekend rains in Hanoi were the worst in at least two decades. On Monday, the rains stopped for most of the day and water levels began to recede.

Petal power: How flowering plants conquered the world

James O'Donoghue
New Scientist
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:04 UTC

Scrambling along a rough mountain trail, I am surrounded by strange trees clinging precariously to the slopes. With their etched and contorted trunks topped by jagged fronds and gaudy orange cones, these are the most bizarre trees I have ever seen.

This is the sacred cycad forest of the Rain Queen, the hereditary ruler of the Balobedu people of Limpopo province in South Africa. Cycads grow here more abundantly than anywhere else on Earth, and the queen is said to use her magical powers to protect them. These strange plants need all the help they can get right now, magical or otherwise, to ward off the unscrupulous collectors that are plundering them. But long before the human threat arrived, the cycads faced a challenge of an altogether greater magnitude.

Coral Bleaching Disturbs Structure Of Fish Communities

Science Daily
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:55 UTC

There is no longer any shadow of a doubt about the impact of global warming on coral reefs. A rise of a few degrees in sea surface temperature induces the expulsion of essential microscopic algae which live in symbiosis with the coral. This process is the cause of coral bleaching and is well known to scientists, but few large-scale studies have dealt with its effects on the structure of communities of hundreds of species of reef-colonizing fish.

© iStockphoto
Healthy and dead parts of the same coral. There is no longer any shadow of a doubt about the impact of global warming on coral reefs. A rise of a few degrees in sea surface temperature induces the expulsion of essential microscopic algae which live in symbiosis with the coral.

Research work reported on recently by an international research team*, including an IRD scientist, brought out evidence of the impact on the fish communities of a mass bleaching event resulting from the 1997-1998 El Niño climatic episode. The investigation was wide in scope, focusing on more than 60 coral reef sites in the Indian Ocean, including nine located in Marine Protected Areas.

World's Rarest Big Cat Gets A Check-up

Science Daily
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:48 UTC

The world's rarest big cat is alive and well. At least one of them, that is, according to researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) who captured and released a female Far Eastern leopard in Russia last week.

© Andrew Harrington
Nice kitty..."Alyona," a critically endangered Far Eastern leopard being examined by Clay Miller (right) of WCS and John Lewis (left) of Wildlife Vets International who listens for abnormalities of the heart.

The capture was made in Primorsky Krai along the Russian-Chinese border by a team of scientists from WCS and the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Biology and Soils (IBS). The team is evaluating the health and potential effects of inbreeding for this tiny population, which experts believe contains no more than 10-15 females. Other collaborators include: Wildlife Vets International, National Cancer Institute, and the Zoological Society of London.

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Earth Changes

Coral Reefs Found Growing In Cold, Deep Ocean

Hurricane Ike Caused Underwater Damage To Galveston

Roads Bring Death And Fear To Forest Elephants

Storm drops more than foot of snow on Sierra peaks

Governor declares agricultural disaster in 5 counties

Saving The Endangered Tasmanian Devil In Australia

Flood toll rises, rains resume in Hanoi

Petal power: How flowering plants conquered the world

Coral Bleaching Disturbs Structure Of Fish Communities

World's Rarest Big Cat Gets A Check-up

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