 Ice diving is careful an advanced type of diving some would say tremendous – because it means diving in a blocked environment with only one entry or exit point. This kind of diving without a direct, vertical ascent or access to the surface is called penetration diving, which also includes cave along with wreck diving.
Needless to say, this makes ice diving more dangerous than recreational diving and requires special training. Ice divers need to know about different types of ice and how it forms; they need to be able to recognize and avoid unsafe ice conditions, and they need to know how to prepare a dive site and what special equipment they will require.
 Two species of squat lobster are found in California coasts. These animals seem like lobsters, but they are more intimately related to hermit crabs. Unlike their associations, squat lobsters dont carry shells on their backs.
Instead, they squeeze into crevices and depart their sharp claws exposed to keep neighboring lobsters away.
Squat lobsters also hide below rocks to protect their bodies. Protected from hungry fishes, they wait for snacks to settle near by those claws are ideal for reaching out and picking up food.
Next with curling up in crevices and hiding under rocks, squat lobsters chance out their territory on sandy patches. They use their claws to scrape up sand and sift for sunken snacks.
 The Rare deep sea shark usually lives at a depth of 2,000 feet so to find footage such as this is pretty amazing. A fisherman spotted the shark inside shallow water and contacted officials at the park, who came and transported the shark to the commons.
Unfortunately the shark was not extended for this world, which is probably why it was near the surface in the first place, and it died a few hours following this footage was filmed.
Rare deep sea shark are known as living fossils because they closely look like animals which are now extinct, and they are very strange looking compared to what have come to expect from present day sharks.
It is certainly a weird creature, and almost only the tip of the iceberg as to the oddities which survive at deep sea levels in our oceans. I think I will attach to owning goldfish and Koi carp.
 Oceanic marvels revealed in the Census of Marine Life's latest report contain a discovery that the ancestor of several world's deep-sea octopuses is still alive! It is a shallow-water octopus called Megaleledone setebos, which is simply found in the icy Southern the deep.
Octopuses it seems that spread around the world after Antarctica became roofed with a continent-wide ice sheet further than 30 million years ago, a move that helped create oxygen-rich ocean currents graceful north. Sea ice forms, freshwater freezes, parting high-salinity, high-oxygen water, which is denser and sinks, elegant into the ocean deeps. Themohaline superhighway pierced the oxygen-less the deep underneath as well as the octopuses motivated out beginning the Antarctic eager on deeper water. The octopuses adapted to the new marine environment. For example, in the rear ink sacs because there was no need for this defense method in the pitch black waters. Most leopard shark sitings are fleeting, however this one is different. The shark allows for pretty close encounter and doesnt move an inch as four divers hover nearby. We effectively swim 270 degrees around the shark, without causing a stir.
After the shark, we reach turn pressure and head home. Kevin leads our team to Middle Reef and we meet up with Itchy, the male wolf eel. His head gets bigger every time I see him. Kevin and I insure that the Christian and Tim get a chance to look and then we kick home.
Doffing the sidemount tanks is easier, but still cumbersome and finger numbing. If I choose to dive the tanks again, I will definitely replace the D-rings and bolt snaps. I am tempted to try AL80s as well, but the prospect of wearing another 12 pounds on my waist is not that enticing.
Second dive, we plan to scooter to Betos. After two 25/25 dives to Betos, this will be my second 32% dive to the reef.
This time donning, I need assistance. Kevin swims over and even remarks that its hard. Probably just to make me feel better.
As we surface scoot out, the visibility in the cove has decreased. At the worm patch, the water is no longer clear and viz drops to about 30.
After a little coordination and corralling by Kevin, our entire group of divers arrive at Betos. You can see Kevin be a model diver by checking his gas and then checking the team at the destination. The Integrated Remote Sensing and Modeling Group (IRSMG) at the USGS Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies conducts investigations of the physical structure and ecological function of coastal ecosystems. The scope of IRSMG projects includes wetlands, estuaries, barrier islands, and coral reef ecosystems occurring about the United States and Caribbean coastal fringe. The IRSMG seeks to marry technical advances in remote sensing from satellite, aircraft, and vessel-based platforms with the natural resource management needs of National Seashores, National Parks, marine sanctuaries, and agencies responsible for the environmental health of major estuaries. The applied research activities of the IRSMG aim to incorporate emerging remote sensing methods in the investigation of the community metabolism and habitat complexity of coastal ecosystems.
This project focuses on advances in remote sensing techniques and applications from satellite, aircraft, and vessel-based platforms. In a close collaboration with NASA and NPS, aircraft-based lidar remote sensing data have been acquired over a variety of coastal communities. As part of this project, special emphasis has been placed on developing sophisticated algorithms for post-processing dense lidar data sets. The resulting fully-documented data products are readily ingestible by common surface modeling and GIS software packages.
A boat-mounted, georeferenced digital imaging system has been developed at the USGS for the monitoring and mapping of coral reef ecosystems. A software system has been developed for interactive browsing and quantitative analysis of these images. |
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