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Heather Leslie: Measuring ocean health

By Guest PostAugust 16, 2012Environmentaaas, artisanal fishing, biodiversity, carbon storage, clean waters, coastal livelihoods, coastal place, coastal protection, coral reefs, david orenstein, ecosystem, gulf of california, gulf region, habitat, heather leslie, index rate, mangroves, Mexico, ocean, ocean condition, ocean health index, ocean species, salt marshes, sea ice, seagrasses, sustainable management

Sustainable management of a huge, complex and valuable resource such as the ocean requires a comprehensive metric that did not exist until now. In the Aug. 16 edition of Nature a broad group of scientists including Heather Leslie, the Sharpe Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, describes the Ocean Health Index. The index rates coastal places, from regions to nations, on 10 goals: artisanal fishing opportunity, biodiversity, carbon storage, clean waters, coastal livelihoods and economies, coastal protection, food provision, natural products, sense of place, and tourism and recreation. Leslie recently answered questions posed by David Orenstein.

How does the Ocean Health Index’s focus on integrating human factors make it different and valuable?

Recognizing people’s integral roles in ocean ecosystems, this index evaluates how well the ocean provides 10 key benefits to people and how well we are protecting its ability to do so in the future. (more…)

‘Library of Fishes’ to Feature Thousands of Specimens from Remote Locations

By Guest PostJune 9, 2011Nature, Scienceanne maglia, biodiversity and ecosystem, california, carl hubbs, environmental change, fish archive, grant galland, gulf of california, marine environment, marine fishes, mexican waters, mvc, national science foundation, nsf, ocean, online database catalog, pacific ocean, pelagic zone, phil hastings, richard rosenblatt, scripps institution of oceanography, scripps marine vertebrate collection, sio

*Fish treasure trove opened with funding from the National Science Foundation*

The stories they could tell, these fishes that once swam the ocean deep and are now in jars and bottles.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Richard Rosenblatt, a marine biologist at California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), set out on field expeditions to remote places to study the fishes of the Pacific Ocean. (more…)

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2010Environment, Scienceadam soule, atmosphere, baja peninsula, bathymetry, carbon, climate, CO2, crust, daniel lizarralde, earth, gas, giora proskurowski, greenhouse gases, guaymas basin, gulf of california, hydrothermal vent, jeff s seewald, methane, molten magma, north guaymas, ocean, red sea, s adam soule, seafloor, tectonic plates, undersea ridges, volcanic rocks

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet’s metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.

Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world’s climate.

Working at the Guaymas basin in the Gulf of California, WHOI scientists confirmed what they suspected from brief glimpses of the area during previous missions: The inner Earth is injecting swaths of magma called sills as far as 50 kilometers away from the plate boundary, on each side of the ridge —nearly 10 times farther from such an active ocean ridge than had been observed before. (more…)

Ancient Colorado River Flowed Backwards

By Guest PostOctober 4, 2010Sciencearizona, california river, colorado river, colorado-green river system, colton formation, geologist, gulf of california, isotope, lead, mineral, mojave region, rocky mountains, southern california, steven davis, uranium, utah, zircon

Palo Alto, CA — Geologists have found evidence that some 55 million years ago a river as big as the modern Colorado flowed through Arizona into Utah in the opposite direction from the present-day river. Writing in the October issue of the journal Geology, they have named this ancient northeastward-flowing river the California River, after its inferred source in the Mojave region of southern California. (more…)

Tag Archives: gulf of california

Heather Leslie: Measuring ocean health

‘Library of Fishes’ to Feature Thousands of Specimens from Remote Locations

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

Ancient Colorado River Flowed Backwards