Category: ocean
A tsunami (Japanese: “harbor wave”; English pronunciation: / tsoo-NAH-mee) is a series of water waves (also called a tsunami wave train) caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, usually an ocean, though it can occur in large lakes. Tsunamis are a frequent occurrence in Japan; approximately 195 events have been recorded. Owing to the immense volumes of water and the high energy involved, tsunamis can devastate coastal regions.
Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions (including detonations of underwater nuclear devices), landslides and other mass movements, meteorite ocean impacts or similar impact events, and other disturbances above or below water all have the potential to generate a tsunami.
The Greek historian Thucydides was the first to relate tsunami to submarine earthquakes, but the understanding of a tsunami’s nature remained slim until the 20th century and is the subject of ongoing research. Many early geological, geographical, and oceanographic texts refer to tsunamis as “seismic sea waves.” (read more)
[the report]..focused on the fact that this deadly radiation is now contained within the bodies of tuna and other edible fish in the great Pacific…
Kindergartener, Savanna Urry was busy presenting her drawings, a poster setup, and an exclusively iPad shot and edited video, that all featured the nuclear topic, and focused on a very plain and daunting fact: The fact that deadly, and highly carcinogenic plutonium and cesium isotopes were spewed, and continue to be spewed into the Pacific Ocean to this very day from the worldâs first, full blown, (triple) nuclear core MELT-THROUGH (many magnitudes more destructive than a traditional nuclear MELTDOWN because it enters groundwater tables). The project additionally featured and focused on the fact that this deadly radiation is now contained within the bodies of tuna and other edible fish in the great Pacific and beyond.
“The Gulfstream” by Winslow Homer 1899
We are adrift
in a sea
of uncertainty
- Labels: art, ocean, painting, perspective, philosophy
90 percent
of the big fish
in the oceans are
gone…
we ate them.
- Labels: greed, ignorance, ocean, overfishing, overpopulation
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of 1,514 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. She was the largest ship afloat at the time of her maiden voyage. One of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, she was built between 1909â11 by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. She carried 2,223 people.
Her passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere seeking a new life in North America. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. She also had a powerful wireless telegraph provided for the convenience of passengers as well as for operational use. Though she had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all of those aboard. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people â slightly more than half of the number traveling on the maiden voyage and one-third her total passenger and crew capacity.
After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland before heading westwards towards New York. On 14 April 1912, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles (600 km) south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm (ship’s time; GMTâ3). The glancing collision caused Titanic’s hull plates to buckle inwards in a number of locations on her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partly filled. A disproportionate number of men â over 90% of those in Second Class â were left aboard due to a “women and children first” protocol followed by the officers loading the lifeboats. Just before 2:20 am Titanic broke up and sank bow-first with over a thousand people still on board. Those in the water died within minutes from hypothermia caused by immersion in the freezing ocean. The 710 survivors were taken aboard from the lifeboats by RMS Carpathia a few hours later. (read more)
Donate to the
Japanese Red Cross Society
with Google Crisis Response.
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html
“What are they doing mama…
They are trying to save us darling one.”
- Labels: extinction, fish, food, greed, nature, ocean, sustainable
The Plastiki is a 60-foot (18 m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products. The craft was built using cradle to cradle design philosophies and features many renewable energy systems, including solar panels, wind and trailing propeller turbines, and bicycle generators. The frame was designed by Australian naval architect Andrew Dovell. The boat’s name is a play on the 1947 Kon-Tiki raft used to sail across the Pacific by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, and its voyage roughly followed the same route.
Earth Day is a day that is intended to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s natural environment. Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this first Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.
Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day. (read more)
- Labels: death, earth, greed, ocean, overfishing, sustainable