(images via dartmouthwaveenergy.com) A horrible name and simple design for pumping water (which can then drive turbines) via wave action on a buoy tethered to the ocean floor (via Treehugger). Not suddenly solving all the world's energy woes, but large numbers of this relatively simple, DIY-friendly design could have a nice impact towards sustainability... Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this!...
Unbeknownst to most of the world, the late super rich adventurer Steve Fossett had started work on an amazing flying submersible that would one day theoretically touch the stars. More importantly, however, was that the design would have allowed adventurers and scientists alike (and most importantly Fossett himself, of course) to venture into the deadly depths of the Mariana Trench, some 36,000 feet below the ocean's surface. Sadly, the design was put on hold immediately after Fossett went missing about one year ago, but that hasn't stopped San Anselmo inventor Graham Hawkes from detailing the project that Fossett tapped him...
Deep beneath the waves, far down on the ocean floor are scenes and images often associated with the stuff of nightmares – translucent fish with wide black eyes capable of seeing in the dark, shell fish with bioluminescent skeletons and colossal squid, so huge that no one has yet to picture them. All these creatures, though bizarre, are somehow quite expected but it’s doubtful whether many people when asked what else they would find strange to discover at the bottom of the ocean would picture a lake. As unlikely as it sounds there are a handful of underwater lakes...
Hundreds of new animal species have been discovered by a team of international researchers affiliated with the global Census of Marine Life exploring waters off Lizard and Heron Islands on the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo Reef off northwestern Australia. The marine expedition was the first scientific inventory of spectacular soft corals, named octocorals for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp. The explorers today released some initial results and stunning images from their landmark four-year effort to record the diversity of life in and around Australia’s renowned reefs. The Discoveries included: about 300 soft coral species, up to...
Google’s latest patent titled “Water-Based Data Center” describes various implementations for deriving power from water while at the same time using water as a method for cooling. One method proposed is a ship-based data center platform capable of being deployed quickly to offer greater flexibility than traditional land based data centers. These Water-Based Data Centers would be powered by natural energy derived from wave motion via tide-powered generators and cooled by “sea-water” cooling units. In addition to being powered by the sea these floating data centers would rely on sea-powered pumps and “seawater-to-freshwater heat exchangers" for cooling. The patent...
The NY Times has a piece today about the monumental task of forging a pressure hull out of raw titanium to be used in the replacement for the legendary Alvin, the Navy's only currently operational deep-sea scientific sub that first explored the wreckage of the Titanic. Where Alvin could dive 2.4 miles down, its successor can go up to 4-miles under (hence the serious forging above), which opens up 99% of the ocean floor for exploration. That's a pretty big deal. As Cindy L. Van Dover, a marine biologist who has logged hundred of hours in Alvin, puts it: “Depth...
The world's deepest-drilling oil platform is maneuvering into place in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell's Perdido oil platform will drill for petroleum more than 8,000 feet below the water's surface. Even though oil prices have dipped from their all-time highs earlier this summer, they are still far higher than at any time since the early 1980s. That's made deep ocean drilling, which is considerably more expensive than most other recovery techniques, a viable enterprise. The new platform employs the 'spar' design, which means that it's actually floating in the water, anchored to the ocean floor by enormous cables. Perdido's...
"After finding a Leatherman on the ocean floor, our hero transformed himself from clawless freak into BIONIC LOBSTER: the handiest lobster alive."...
U.S. and University of New Hampshire scientists on the Coast Guard Cutter Healy will leave Barrow, Alaska, on Thursday on a three-week journey to determine the extent of the continental shelf north of Alaska and map the ocean floor, data that could be used for oil and natural gas exploration.. They will create a three-dimensional map of the Arctic Ocean floor in a relatively unexplored area known as the Chukchi borderland. The Alaskan continental shelf may lie up to 600 nautical miles from the coastline, far beyond the 200-mile (322-km) limit where coastal countries have sovereign rights over natural...
Tiny ancient microbes beneath the sea floor influence the Earth's long-term carbon cycle. Distinct from life on the Earth's surface, these microbes may account for one-tenth of the Earth's living biomass, according to an interdisciplinary team of researchers who looked at sediment samples from a variety of depths taken off the coast of Peru, but many of these minute creatures are living on a geologic timescale. The team examined how the microbial world differs in the sub-sea floor from that in the surface waters, with profound implications for our understanding of possible lifeforms elsewhere in the Solar System. "Our first...
