The new protected areas - including the ocean’s deepest spot, down nearly seven miles - are bigger than California.ĭr. She had a hand in President Bush’s designation last week of vast parts of the American-controlled Pacific Ocean as marine monuments. She has done pioneering research on algae, probed the ecology of coral reefs, set records for deep diving, tracked marine mammals and lobbied for the creation of marine sanctuaries. Earle, an oceanographer and former chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has participated in more than a half-century of ocean exploration and protection. Its maps and graphs, prose and pictures detail how discoveries like the surprising ubiquity of Prochlorococcus are illuminating the sea, its immense impact on the planet and its habitability.ĭr. Earle is a co-author of “Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas,” published recently by National Geographic. And it is just one of thousands of types of marine algae and photosynthetic microbes - everything from invisible cells to plantlike growths to kelp forests.Ī student of the big and the small, Dr. The tiny organism is estimated to provide the oxygen in “one in every five breaths we take,” Dr. It daily releases countless tons of oxygen into the atmosphere. Earle notes that just one type - Prochlorococcus, so small that millions can fit in a drop of water - has achieved fame as perhaps the most abundant photosynthetic organism on the planet. Boaters ridiculed them as scum that turned patches of sea into pea soup. Earle began studying algae, the marine plants and related microbes were often considered weeds or worse. It can grow as much as a foot a day, producing what are considered the largest of the sea’s photosynthetic organisms. One of its relatives forms the kelp forests that thrive off the California coast. Some form wispy clusters of filaments, while others resemble delicate ribbons or leafy, golden-brown shrubs. This brown algae and its cousins love coastal waters that are cool or cold.
They feed on plankton, the sea’s drifting life. Its cousins are found throughout most of the world’s oceans. This moon jelly, viewed from below, seems to merge with the sky and sea. In modern times, the delicate animals were thought to exist only as fossils until explorers in the 1990s discovered large reefs of living relics.Ī seastar, a cousin of the coinoids, sand dollars, sea cucumbers and brittle stars. This glass sponge, a cousin of the barrel sponge, produced dense reefs in ancient seas that were shallow and warm. In the 1980s, she helped found two companies to make innovative vehicles that could open the sea’s dark recesses to human exploration, and ever since she has sought to illuminate the abyss.
Earle pilots a one-person submersible known as Deep Worker through Drake’s Bay in California. Browne is the former managing editor of Travel Agent magazine. Michael Browne is a freelance writer and editor based in New York City, specializing in travel and the hospitality industry. Ride the B train to Sheepshead Bay, then walk down Voorhies Avenue to Sheepshead Bay Road, turn right onto Emmons Avenue. Parking is at a premium along the piers, however, due to all of the day trippers on fishing boats. Also nearby are Manhattan and Brighton Beaches and Coney Island. There are plenty of boats for charter for both fishermen and pleasure cruisers, and Emmons Avenue, which runs the length of the bay, offers an endless array of seafood and Italian restaurants, along with cafés, bars and other neighborhood businesses. Fishing from the piers in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, is a great way to spend a day, but there's plenty more to do in this quaint community, which feels like an oldtime fishing village.
0 kommentar(er)
