Deep Sea Bloggerhead: Census of Marine Life Complete(!)

Monday, October 4, 2010

Census of Marine Life Complete(!)

"The Census of Marine Life, which announced its full findings Monday, has taken 10 years to complete, employing 2,700 scientists from 80 nations. The $650 million study surveyed from the coldest waters to the warmest lagoons, from the smallest microbes to the largest cetaceans. It even looked at life 10,000 meters (6.2 miles) down in the Marianas Trench southeast of Japan."

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Boston Globe Story:
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Census of Marine Life

"Scientists estimate that there are more than 1 million marine species but only about 250,000 have been formally described in scientific literature over the centuries. Those figures exclude microbes -- of which the census estimate there are up to 1 billion kinds. Myriam Sibuet, vice-chair of the Scientific Steering Committee on the mammoth study, said: "The census enlarged the known world. Life astonished us everywhere we looked. In the deep sea we found luxuriant communities despite extreme conditions." "The census also collated information on the 16,764 species of fish that have ever been described -- but estimates that a further 5,000 have yet to be discovered. Central to the census is its database called the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (or OBIS), which includes 28 million observations of more than 120,000 species, going back centuries. OBIS is growing at the rate of about five million observations each year."

On a related note: On Oceana:
"ROV Explores Seafloor Near Key West
Posted Tue, Sep 28, 2010 by emily to diving, fish, grouper, key west, marine ecology, marine life, oceana gulf expedition, ROV In the latest update from the Latitude, Oceana scientist Jon Warrenchuk describes the ROV’s dive near Key West. The underwater ridge looked promising: South of Key West, 10 miles offshore and 200 meters deep. The bathymetric lines piled up steeply on the chart, indicating some steep relief in some otherwise flat habitat. As far as I knew, no one had ever seen what the seafloor looked like in that area. We deployed the ROV some distance from the site, trying to take into account the drift of the boat."