Archive for the ‘Island’ Category

Visit Japan’s Abandoned ‘Battleship Island’ Safely From Home!

Monday, July 1st, 2013

Google has a new program where they’re asking hikers who’re willing to strap a on 40lb Google Street View backpack version of the device that’s usually strapped to the roof of a car. They’re asking that, should you be heading off to explore some interesting part of the world, if you wouldn’t mind ‘street-mapping’ it for the rest of us to lazy to get up and do it for ourselves.

Recently a team of willing urban explorers went to Hashima Island (also known as ‘Battleship Island’) with the blessings of the Nagasaki government. While tourists have been visiting the island since 2009 their exploration area is very limited because of dangerous conditions. Google’s team, fortunately for the rest of us, was allowed to explore much more of the island so that all of us can now visit this hauntingly unique place.

[PSFK]

Deep Sea Trawler Pulls Up Weird, New Sharks!

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

Paul Clerkin, a shark ecology graduate student at California’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, has been spending the last couple of months on a deep-sea trawling vessel in the Indian Ocean to see if the ship’s nets might pull up anything interesting in the way of sharks.

The trawler’s nets have been dropping to a depth of 6,500 feet off the coast of an island called Mauritius. What’s come up have been hundreds of strange-looking sharks. Several are species known to be very rare while others may be absolutely unseen before now.

“I tell people I have a ton of sharks, and they keep thinking I’m joking,” Clerkin said. “It was an actual ton. I brought back 350 sharks.”

What’s even cooler is that if any of the strange sharks are entirely new species? Clerkin gets to name them. He’s said that he’ll name a few after his mentors and possibly one after his mom and maybe himself.

We can hear his intro now…”I’m Paul Clerkin. You may not know me. A species of shark bears my name.”
Awesome.
[See a photo gallery of these weird sharks via OurAmazingPlanet.Com]
[MSNBC]

Sunken Islands Found In The Caribbean

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Scientists find sunken islands in Caribbean - The Local.jpg

Could it be Atlantis? Lost’s mystery island in the sideways universe? Either way, there are some sunken islands at the bottom of the Caribbean Ocean.

During their six weeks in the waters north of Venezuela and west of the Antilles, the experts from the University of Greifswald analysed rock samples from depths of more than 1,000 metres.

The “Meteor” crew then used echo sounding to measure the ocean floor, an exercise which revealed significant differences in depth compared to current marine charts.

In fact, some of the underwater mountains listed on charts did not exist at all, while other areas thought to be flat showed rises of up to 1,000 metres, geologist Martin Meschede said.

The team’s biggest surprise came from the samples they dredged from the ocean floor, which showed stones that could only have come from very shallow depths.

The scientist also believe that the islands were volcanic. No word on if “volcanic” means a nuclear bomb exploded, therefore resetting the timeline.

[The Local]