OT/ FL: Black "Blob" Of Water Causing Huge Environmental Concerns...
Slimpickins
Dying sponges offer clues about the `blob'
BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmo...@herald.com
A zone of dying sponges and coral off Key West has suddenly elevated the
formation dubbed ''black water'' from scientific mystery to major
environmental concern.
In the first reliable underwater assessment of impact on marine life, a
commercial diver documented enough damage to raise alarms that the baffling
blob may have left a swath of unseen destruction in its wake as it slowly
drifted from the Gulf of Mexico across Florida Bay over the last few months.
''This certainly sounds like it's the effects of something very nasty going
on,'' Billy Causey, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary, said Tuesday.
The devastated sponges were observed over the weekend in the northwest
channel off Key West by Ken Nedimyer, a member of the sanctuary's advisory
council who collects specimens for the aquarium trade.
''The water was a creepy green at the surface and by the time I got to the
bottom, it was really creepy and dark,'' wrote Nedimyer in an e-mail sent to
the sanctuary and several of scientists studying the curious discoloration.
He noted six species of rope sponge as the hardest hit, with 50 to 75
percent wiped out, as well as a number of other sponges dead or dying. Brain
coral and starfish also seemed to be suffering. Fish in the area seemed
healthy, though curiously unhungry.
''There's a real meltdown occuring down there right now,'' Nedimyer wrote.
Before Nedimyer's report, scientists had not confirmed any toxic effects
from the black water but Nedimyer's observations were serious enough that
the sanctuary planned to dispatch its own divers to survey for more
widespread damage. While the mass described as the color of sewer water is
breaking up and shrinking, at one point it spanned several hundred miles.
While scientists were still sorting through water samples, satellite images,
weather reports and historical studies and observations, the sponge dieoff
is another strong indicator that the culprit is an explosion of some sort of
microscopic plankton, said Brian Keller, the sanctuary's science
coordinator.
During a series of algae blooms that plagued Florida Bay in the mid-1990s,
sponges, which feed by filtering water, were among the first organisms to
go, in vast acres, followed by seagrass beds. Those blooms did not kill
fish, like red tide does, but fish do avoid the areas during outbreaks and
lose forage and shelter until the areas recover, which can take years.
''The fact that it appears to be a fairly selective mortality indicates to
me that it's not like some general toxin in the water column that would kill
everything,'' Keller said.
But Keller agreed it would take more study to issue a definitive word. A
loose-knit team of state, federal and private scientists studying the patch
plans to discuss the data and issue a list of probable causes, perhaps by
week's end.
As of now, ''it's a phenomenon about which we are uncertain,'' said Beverly
Roberts, research administrator at the Florida Marine Research Institute in
St. Petersburg. It could be caused by anything from pollution to some sort
of decaying plant material, perhaps flushed to sea from land.
Scientists at the institute, the Mote Marine Laboratory in the Keys and
Sarasota, and the University of South Florida were all analyzing data. Water
samples have shown medium to high levels of two types of phytoplanktons,
tiny plants so essential to the marine food chain that they're called ''the
grass of the sea,'' Roberts said.
''It's eaten by a lot of smaller stages of the fishes,'' she said. They're
normal in sea water but plankton or a variety of them can cause problems in
high concentrations.
The samples also detected low concentrations of another bottom plankton that
produces ciguatera, a toxic that can sicken people who eat fish with high
levels. But Roberts said it unlikely it played a major part.
Anne Warfield
--
Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/
Slimpickins
"Anne Warfield" <indi...@aolxxx.com> wrote in message
news:3ca26b36...@news.earthlink.net...
***Your so welcome, Anne :-)
Slim
Jori Mckie
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/03/28/boston.plane/index.html
<NEWSBYTE>
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- A man was arrested Thursday after he
told a flight attendant on a Delta Air Lines plane preparing to take
off from Boston's Logan International Airport that he had "top secret"
information and that "people could be killed," officials said. The
incident does not appear to be related to terrorism, a government
source said. The incident occurred at 1:15 p.m. EST after the jet had
been pulled back from Gate 34, where boarding had just been completed.
The plane, Delta Express Flight 2533, was to fly to Orlando, Florida.
</NEWSBYTE>
Now, this gentleman is identified in the story as Marine Biologist
Richard Lambertsen, of Cocoa, Florida, formerly of the University of
Florida, last known to be working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution. You may remember he was pressured to leave UFL by
Greenpeace about 10 years ago.
This is all I have been able to find out - there is very little
information about him on the net. If anyone has any more information
I'd love to hear it. I'm kind of curious what could make an emminent
marine biologist so upset. What 'Top Secret' information does he think
he has, and could it be related to the Florida Blob?
Yes, I know I've cross posted to some very unlikely bedfellows, but
you never know from whence a piece of the puzzle may come.
Jori
Andy Carol
Mckie <jori_x...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Now, this gentleman is identified in the story as Marine Biologist
> Richard Lambertsen, of Cocoa, Florida, formerly of the University of
> Florida, last known to be working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
> Institution. You may remember he was pressured to leave UFL by
> Greenpeace about 10 years ago.
> This is all I have been able to find out - there is very little
> information about him on the net. If anyone has any more information
> I'd love to hear it. I'm kind of curious what could make an emminent
> marine biologist so upset. What 'Top Secret' information does he think
> he has, and could it be related to the Florida Blob?
Hmmmm, he has a choice. He could take this "top secret" information
and share it with enviromentally friendly newspapers and organizations
and allow them to get the facts out.
He could even take it to the Washington Post or New York Times, no
friends of the current regime in Washington or Florida.
But no, he decides to announce it to a bunch of fellow passengers on a
plane.
This doesn't make little alarms go off as to his ability to think
clearly?
--- Andy