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about 8 years ago
Manta Ray hot lunch Marianas Variety (Press Release) — The Manta Ray Band will be having a hot lunch this Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016, to raise funds for their trip to the Tumon Bay Music Festival on Guam next month. The lunches are $5 each and include fried chicken, lumpia (fried spring roll ...
about 8 years ago
gulfnews.com Whale shark sightings along UAE coast not alarming: experts gulfnews.com Dr. Elsayed Ahmad Mohammed, Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa, of International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told Gulf News that the recent appearances of the fish make sense given the whale shark feeds close to the surface and often ... and more »
about 8 years ago
KHON2 Whale shark surprises tour group off Haleiwa KHON2 A group led by North Shore Shark Adventures was visited by a whale shark Friday morning, the intimate experience captured on video. They were about three miles off Haleiwa when the shark slowly emerged. “It swam right up to the boat, really slow ... and more »
about 8 years ago
Thanh Nien Daily Carcass of beached whale shark to be preserved by Vietnamese scientists Thanh Nien Daily The Nha Trang Oceanography Institute in central Vietnam has decided to preserve the carcass of a whale shark that died after it got caught in a fishing net last week. Fishermen and local authorities on Thursday handed over the dead fish to the institute. Giant whale shark to be embalmed for scientific researchVietNamNet Bridge all 2 news articles ...
about 8 years ago
National Geographic Manta Rays Get Crittercams for First Time Ever National Geographic We didn't think suction cups would work because manta ray skin is really rough like sand paper. We knew suction cups worked well on the smooth skin of whales. The cups were originally designed to move pieces of glass. But we gave it a try, and with a ... Scripps Grad Student Receives Prestigious Environmental FellowshipScripps Oceanography News all 4 news articles » ...
about 8 years ago
Video From a Whale Shark's Point of View National Geographic Their goal was to deploy Crittercams on whale sharks to get a glimpse of the sharks' underwater world and to better understand their behavior along the reef. Like most people, Wilhelm had never seen a whale shark. He worked on the Crittercams for about ... and more »
about 8 years ago
Zap2It Dominic Monaghan on meeting the Whale Shark: 'I had this sort of out of body experience' Zap2It “Wild Things With Dominic Monaghan” returned to Travel Channel with its third season on Wednesday (Jan. 27). The premiere, aptly titled, “Majestic Mozambique,” finds our host on the hunt for the elusive — and quite massive — Whale Shark. Early on in ... Monaghan knows where the 'Wild Things' areVirgin Islands Daily News all 9 news articles ...
about 8 years ago
CBC.ca Brian Keating swims alongside La Paz's mysterious whale sharks CBC.ca They're such huge animals," said Keating, who saw his first whale shark less than 15 minutes out of the bay. By the day's end, Keating had met at least a dozen whale sharks. He even managed to snap a few underwater photos from their tail end as proof.
about 8 years ago
FIS Fishing ban for giant manta ray FIS The Ministry of Production (Produce) has banned the capture of the giant manta ray (Manta birostris) in the Peruvian marine waters, in order to preserve this species on the coast of the country. The measure, established by a ministerial decree, is in ... and more »
about 8 years ago
The National Whale shark seen swimming in Abu Dhabi marina The National ABU DHABI // A whale shark between three and four metres long has been seen swimming in the marina at the InterContinental Abu Dhabi. Employees at the hotel first noticed the fish at 1.45pm on Friday and quickly took a video and photos to capture the ...
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Entries in tectonics (2)

Monday
Sep132010

Visualising the New Zealand earthquake

New Zealand is very active for eathquakes and vulcanism, unlike its bigger brother Australia, which is perhaps the most tectonically stable piece of crust floating around anywhere on this ball of magma. Thats because NZ sits atop the place where the Pacific ocean floor dives down under the aforementioned Australian plate. On September 4th there was a big slip around Christchurch, resulting in an eathquake measured at 7.4 in magnitude, which damaged hundreds of buildings and was felt all over New Zealand. Chris McDowall is a kiwi informatician who assembled 6 months of NZ earthquake activity into a cool data visualisation that shows just how common it is for the ground to move down there. Each earthquake appears as a purple blob, of intensity matched to the magnitude of the temblor, leaving a little red mark behind to show the accumulation over time. I was struck by how much of the activity is concentrated in two parallel lines running southwest-northeast on the north island. When the Christchurch quake hits the middle of the south island it just seems so big and out of place. Anyway, its a great bit of data visualisation and I thought you might like it too. Via my colleague Malcolm Bowman at Stony Brook U.

 

Visualising six months of New Zealand earthquake data (Apr 1 - Sep 7, 2010) from Chris McDowall on Vimeo.

Monday
Mar222010

What do expectant parents and the Chilean earthquake have in common?

The recent Chilean earthquake was a disaster on a mind-boggling scale; one that had its genesis beneath the sea.  The temblor, and all those in Chile before it, including the biggest ever recorded anywhere, resulted from the Nazca plate sliding down under the South American plate, under the sea to the South West of Santiago.  Well, it doesn't exactly slide, I always imagined it would sound like a creaking door if you could speed up the process a few zillion times.  The upward pressure this collision puts on the South American plate is immense and produces the longest mountain range in the world, the Andes.

Anyway, this most recent slip, which shifted about 10 meters and registered 8.8 on the Richter scale, caused a small tsunami.  Now some researchers from Scripps and UCSD want to know whether it was because of the sea floor movement itself, or because the quake triggered undersea landslides ("slumping") that produced the wave.  They are going to do some nifty multi-beam sonar work to map the seafloor changes in unprecedented details.  Sonar technology has become a really cool tool these days; the same sorts of benefits that new parents reap when they ultrasound their new bundle of joy also give scientists a fantastic new view on the sea floor.  Just check out this example of a shipwreck revealed by NOAA's nautical survey side-scan sonar.