This Week, Deep

I often come across things during the week that I think would make great posts for 80percentdeep. However, I can't write about it all, so I thought I would start a weekend round up of the 5 or so most compelling "deep" things I found interwebs. I'll try to make this a weekly post (TRY being the operative word), and I will try to have a good mix of news, new discoveries, humor, and the generally awesome. So, here are 5 things for this week.

This week in the deep: 

1) A huge molasses spill in Hawaii causing significant environmental harm. I wrote about this already here.

2) The largest volcano on earth was discovered. That's all. No big deal. Its name is Tamu Massif. Its only about 13,000 feet tall, but it covers about 120,000 square miles. You can read more here.

3) A new study shows that elevated carbon dioxide may cause tiny plankton to bloom, which could wreak havoc on marine food webs. Just another example of how complex carbon cycling is, and how we are still just beginning to understand the implications of climate change. Disclosure: I haven't read the actual study yet, but you can read the news story I read here.

4) For something a bit lighter, I thought I would include a video clip relevent to a paper we are reading this coming week in the Deep Sea Biology class I am TAing at Harvard Extension School. The paper is about how certain Yetti Crabs at hydrothermal vents were found to farm bacteria on their claws my moving them through hydrothermal flow as if they were dancing. This video shows the amazing dancing behavior.

5) This one is old, but I just came across it this week. A group of sperm whales apparently took in a deformed bottle nosed dolphin representing a very rare cross-species bonding! Read more from National Geographic here.

6) Finally, if you're interested in science at sea (and clearly you are if you're actually reading this), there is a group out at Axial Volcano (one of my study sites) off the coast of Washington state. They are using the ROV Jason to investigate hydrothermal vent microbes (among other things) - something I'm particularly fond of. You can follow their blog here.