Our blue planet is dynamic; always changing. We live and depend on the Earth’s crust, formed and reformed by millions of once-active volcanoes and tremendous volumes of magma.The crust is magma that cooled below the surface. Volcanism has resulted in many valuable natural resources throughout our world. For example, volcanic ash from Iceland will blow over thousands of square miles of land resulting in increased soil fertility of forests and agriculture by adding Earth’s natural nutrients and acting as a mulch. Global cooling too! Heating and cooling, and heating again is the cause of fjords. It would be a catastrophe if the planet was stagnant for billions of years, but that’s not an excuse to abuse, waste, or liter. Read about fjords: http://hd2o.tv/flog/2009/polish-academy-of-sciences-challenge-gore-theory/

Mount Pinatubo in 1991:

The June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo was global. Slightly cooler than usual temperatures recorded worldwide and the brilliant sunsets and sunrises have been attributed to this eruption that sent fine ash and gases high into the stratosphere, forming a large volcanic cloud that drifted around the world. The sulfur dioxide (SO2) in this cloud — about 22 million tons — combined with water to form droplets of sulfuric acid, blocking some of the sunlight from reaching the Earth and thereby cooling temperatures in some regions by as much as 0.5 degrees C. An eruption the size of Mount Pinatubo could affect the weather for a few years.

Tambora in 1815:

A similar phenomenon occurred in April of 1815 with the cataclysmic eruption of Tambora Volcano in Indonesia, the most powerful eruption in recorded history. Tambora’s volcanic cloud lowered global temperatures by as much as 3 degrees C. Even a year after the eruption, most of the northern hemisphere experienced sharply cooler temperatures during the summer months. In parts of Europe and in North America, 1816 was known as “the year without a summer.”

Pompeii in 79 A.D.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="map of Pompeii"][/caption]

This Roman town near Naples in the Italian region of Campania, was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning just two days. The volcano collapsed roofs and buried Pompeii under 20 m (66 ft) of ash and pumice. It was lost for 1,600 years before its accidental rediscovery in 1592.

So the answer is YES, volcanoes have a very profound affect on weather! Volcanoes cool planet Earth. They also affect Man, and there is nothing we can do about it… or the weather. But we can positively impact our space: recycle.

via CVO Website - Do Volcanoes Affect Weather?

###

Few things are more frustrating than a great dive with a pro-sumer camera. HDV is simply inadequate due to Inter-frame or I-Frame MPEG recording. And that’s only the beginning. Low-to-no color sampling [4:2:0 vs. 4:2:2], minuscule data rate (25Mbs vs. 100 Mbs), and use of mini-DV tape vs. tapeless workflow add to the nightmare, but most importantly HDV does not meet broadcast standards. HDV I-Frame compression compares groups of frames to determine the compression algorithm. [see below] That’s fine for a ‘talking head’ interview where very little changes frame-to-frame, but ask yourself the logical question. Is any frame of underwater video similar to the one prior? Much less the last 15-frames? Of course not, and so the results are substandard at best. DVCPRO is a professional broadcast format. Most importantly each frame is compressed separately. HDV is doomed to consumer cameras. As broadcast standards get more demanding HDV will be kicked to the curb, left at the dock.

---

Want to shoot Pro High Definition? - Buy our rugged, balanced, high quality AquaVideo Marine Case for the Panasonic HVX-200 P2 camcorder. This is the first system to provide true production level, 24p 4:2:2 recording in a compact and affordable underwater package. Rated to depths of 50 meters/165 feet, it is easy to set up and easy to use. Did I mention quality??? See our HD PodCast or our store main page hd2o.tv or the clips below in this FLOG.

[caption id="attachment_907" align="alignright" width="288" caption="DVCPRO-HD ~ u/w housing for HVX-200 "][/caption]

Buy Our Rig: includes the housing and light kit; ships in a secure plastic bin. $3000.00 studio@hd2o.tv

Optics are designed to provide an extreme wide angle view – for dramatically clearer, more colorful underwater pictures. (The lens I use  - Century .75x bayonet specifically for the HVX200 - MSRP $1195) Glass dome port optical system (not acrylic) is optically neutral; corrects for distortions and aberrations and allows true lens-magnified macro and zoom-through without having to change lenses or optical setup. Stainless steel closure clamps, five front and five back, are quick and secure the 1″ acrylic end-plates with spring-loaded locking latches to prevent accidental opening. X-ring seals are highly reliable.

Controls to all major camera functions are on this rig to include; power, record trigger, zoom, focus, iris, mode, user 1, 2, 3, white balance, A/B presets, etc. About 48 lbs dry, this rig is small, self contained, rugged, and extremely agile in the soup. 10.75” diameter allows the camera?s LCD to be open and viewed through the clear backplate without glare. Velcro secures the battery pack for the SuperNova 250w 3400K HID light-kit. We use a 100GB FireStore FS-100 which also fits below the camera mounting plate, or use P2 cards.
Ships in a plastic bin; 16″x18″x24″.

HVX200 Camera, Century .75 lens mount, FireStore FS-100 are NOT included.  studio@hd2o.tv

---

Intra- vs. Inter-frame compression facts :

[Wikipedia] Most compression systems used for acquisition in the digital cinematography world compress footage one frame at a time, as if a video stream is a series of still images. This is called intra-frame compression. Inter frame compression systems can further compress data by examining and eliminating redundancy between frames. This leads to higher compression ratios, but displaying a single frame will usually require the playback system to decompress a number of frames from before & after it. In normal playback this is not a problem, as each successive frame is played in order, so the preceding frames have already been decompressed. In editing, however, it is common to jump around to specific frames and to play footage backwards or at different speeds. Because of the need to decompress extra frames in these situations, inter-frame compression can cause performance problems for editing systems. Inter-frame compression is also disadvantageous because the loss of a single frame (say, due to a flaw writing data to a tape) will typically ruin all the frames until the next keyframe occurs. In the case of the HDV format, for instance, this may result in as many as 6 frames being lost with 720p recording, or 15 with 1080i recording [3]. An inter-frame compressed video stream consists of groups of pictures (GOPs), each of which has only one full frame, and a handful of other frames referring to this frame. If the full frame, called I-frame, is lost due to transmission or media error, none of the P-frames of B-frames (the referenced images) can be displayed. In this case, the whole GOP is lost.

###

Anchovies, or Sardines, or Minnows Oh My!

Key Largo - Our trusted Captain Jeff Jarvis told of a magical place where the bate fish were so thick we could not see through them. We had to see that for ourselves in HD. If you look close you will see a Barracuda (their worst nightmare) hanging in the current; upper right corner.

Take a wild guess at how many fish are in this one minute clip, go ahead - guess; who could prove you wrong??? Enjoy

###

Did you know… the earliest known sharks date back more than 420 million years ago, before the time of the dinosaurs?

[See the video below]

United Nations wildlife trade body denied three proposals for cross-border commerce of sharks threatened with extinction. Conservationists argued fishing for sharks is unregulated, but Japan led the opposition, arguing management of shark populations should be left to regional fisheries groups, not CITES.

Only one new marine species is protection by the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the Porbeagle, a shark that resembles the Mako and is fished for its meat. Bids to impose a global trade ban on seven species of precious coral also fell short of the required two-thirds majority.

The shark species left unregulated commerce are; Scalloped Hammerhead, Oceanic White Tip, and the Spiny Dogfish. The fish are often tossed back into the water after their precious fins have been sliced away. And we thought Michael Vick was a monster? Yes he is a monster. We cannot justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behaviors; it’s not a sliding-scale. Millions of Hammerhead and White Tip sharks are taken to satisfy a psychotic appetite for sharkfin soup, a prestige food to the uninformed, selfish, greedy, mostly wealthy, mindless classes of morons. Two decades ago these two shark species were common semi-coastal and open-water sharks, but  demand for fins have slashed populations by 90 per cent in several regions.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the White Tip is 99% depleted.

Gus Sant, a shark expert at wildlife monitoring group TRAFFIC said: “The decision not to list all of these sharks is a conservation catastrophe. The current level of trade in these species is simply not sustainable.”

“We see clearly now the Japanese motivation for opposing all these marine species proposals,” said Anne Schroeer, a Madrid-based economist with Oceana. “For the whales, they say they are catching them traditionally. For the bluefin tuna, they say they are eating it. But for the sharks, there is nothing but pure economic self-interest.”

More in this FLOG on human cruelty toward sharks, read hawaii-shark-feeding-business see the video clip and hear what Stephen Frink has to say about his favorite animal and how important animals in the Ocean.

###

NEW DELHI – For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal.

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

“What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,” said Hazra. (I respectfully disagree.) Here are the details that were ‘creatively’ NOT published by the emotional media, but was published by the smh.com.au

Professor Hazra said sea-level rise, changes in monsoonal rain patterns which altered river flows and land subsidence were all contributing to the inundation of land in the northern Bay of Bengal. How could the media overlook this important detail from Prof. Hazra?

Proof of Global Warming??? Really?? Proof?

If so, why isn’t the Ocean rising at the same rate around the globe? Click the map and take a closer look; you will see this wasn’t an island at all, rather a rock in the mouth of a river delta. Take a closer look at image two. Throughout Earth-history rivers have changed course as sediment build up forced the flow to adjust. That’s not global warming, that’s called gravity. Stick a buoy on it!

Ocean rising or Land sinking? The real question.

Tectonic plates shift all the time. The tsunami and the Chilean earthquake are good examples. We live on a dynamic organic planet. It is not benign; it is always moving. Could it be that the sea level in the Bay of Bengal may not be rising, rather the land may be sinking?

“Question with boldness or risk loosing yourself to the popular thought, which is often flawed by human emotions!”

###

Earthquake Facts - Haiti’s dwarfed by Chile’s 8.8

Chile’s recent earthquake was 500 times the Haiti earthquake.

Are you aware of recent earthquakes and what that means? Are we more aware because of instant media? Is Man at fault? Can we change Earth processes and protect our future? Man, meaning all of us, isn’t having an impact of Richter proportion, but knowing the facts from the USGS will illuminate our imaginations to the unbound power of Nature. We haven’t seen mountains rise.  With the exception of Yellowstone National Park we’re live during a volcanically dull period.

---

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

Start with Common Myths about Earthquakes.
(will California fall into the ocean?)

Here are awesome links:

• Earthquake Topics Information on a variety of earthquake topics, in alphabetical order.
• FAQ Frequently Asked Questions about earthquakes and earthquake hazards.
• Earthquake Glossary 200+ earthquake terms and their definitions, each with an image.
• For Kids Fun and educational resources including Science Fair ideas, online games, photos, earthquake science and scientists.
• Students & Teachers Educational resources for teachers and their students. Browse or search by grade and/or earthquake topic.
• Today in Earthquake History Earthquakes from the past. Find out what happened on your birthday.
• Yellowstone National Park Real-time monitoring.

This Fascinating World.

Reading the Richter Scale each whole number increase equals a tenfold increase in amplitude. As an estimate of energy, each whole number corresponds to the release of about 31 times more energy than the preceding whole number value. 

7.0 x 10 = 8.0

FunFacts:

• The largest recorded earthquake in the United States was a magnitude 9.2 that struck Prince William Sound, Alaska on Good Friday, March 28, 1964.

• Chile March 1, 2010 is rocked by a magnitude 8.8 which was 500 times the strength of the Haiti quake January 12, 2010. A tsunami also hit coastal villages.

• The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 (Mw) in Chile on May 22, 1960.

• When the Chilean earthquake occurred in 1960, seismographs recorded seismic waves that traveled all around the Earth. These seismic waves shook the entire earth for many days! This phenomenon is called the free oscillation of the Earth.

• All mountain ranges were produced by a series of earthquakes.

• Each year the southern California area has about 10,000 earthquakes. Most of them are so small that they are not felt. Only several hundred are greater than magnitude 3.0, and only about 15-20 are greater than magnitude 4.0. If there is a large earthquake, however, the aftershock sequence will produce many more earthquakes of all magnitudes for many

Online Coral Reef Resource Now Available at reefrelieffounders.com

Dear friends and Reef Relief founders Craig and DeeVon Quirolo retired from the Key West based grassroots organization last July, only to begin a comprehensive effort to provide an online resource on coral reefs.  Their new website provides all the award-winning educational tools, grassroots strategies, project reports and images of coral reefs assembled during their work over the past 23 years in the Florida Keys and throughout the Caribbean protecting coral reefs.  You can find it at www.reefrelieffounders.com.
“We just wanted to insure that others can learn from our experiences and continue the important work of saving endangered coral reefs,” noted DeeVon in a recent note.  “Craig’s image archive from all the years he monitored coral reefs, especially those revealing new coral diseases, are invaluable to researchers, students, media, divers and the general public to learn about coral reefs.  We hope to inspire a new generation of sea

Ocean ambiance, relaxed presentation,
our 2009 DVD get HD2O online.

U.S. Coast Guard|by PO3 Walter Shinn

November 18, 2009 - JUNEAU, Alaska – The Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea, the world’s most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker, will moor at the South Franklin Pier in Juneau and is scheduled to open for public tours.

The Polar Sea is returning to its homeport in Seattle after completing a 101 day deployment, 60 which were above the Arctic Circle. Although the crew of the Polar Sea has conducted multiple patrols in the Arctic, this would mark the cutter’s first science deployment in more than a decade concluding the cutter’s Arctic West Fall 2009 deployments.

The first phase took place over the course of two weeks in mid-September and involved 34 scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory led by Dr. Richard Coffin. The scientists met the cutter off Barrow, Alaska and conducted coring operations to study sediment composition. They were also involved in taking water samples to study temperature, salinity and levels of oxygen at varying

Madrid — The Oceana Ranger catamaran is equipped with a robot that has dived down to 500 meters depth to film species that are rarely spotted, or have never even been seen, in the Canarian archipelago.

[caption id="attachment_631" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Click image!"][/caption]

The goal of the expedition is to identify areas that should be turned into marine protected areas. Only 2.7% of the EU’s marine surface area is protected, but the United Nations calls for 10%.

Oceana has found around a dozen species in the Canary Islands whose existence in the archipelago was unknown until now. Glass and rock sponges, ball, white and black coral, and armored searobin are some of the species that have been found. A wide variety of rare species, or species for which hardly any biological information is known, were also able to be filmed live, including channeled rockfish, anglerfish, silver and pink gallo fish, fan coral, bathyal sea fans, Venus fly-trap anemones, and lollipops sponges.

###

Shipwrecks have captured the imagination of scuba divers with each person alone with their thoughts to wonder what may have happened, who was on board, how many died, and if other divers may have tempted the interior to find a watery grave since. Most wrecks are as safe as underwater safety can be, and most divers use extreme caution when entering a ship’s interior, totally aware of what could be. This wreck is mostly skeletal with very few interior spaces to explore, but that doesn’t diminish the experience.

The BENWOOD was sunk in 1942 after WWII. Some say she was hit by German U-boat torpedoes and could not limp back to port. Other say she was laid to rest and used for target practice. Either way the BENWOOD is a shallow dive in reasonable current in the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary as a wonderful artificial reef to explore… and wonder.

Choose the 640 or 960 HD clips. Our HD PodCast on iTunes offers an excellent viewing experience.

 

 Shipwreck BENWOOD: Play Now | Play in Popup

 

 Shipwreck BENWOOD - HD clip: Play Now | Play in Popup

Music by Garry Lee Rosenberg, appropriately titled; Sea Anemone.

###

Help protect deep water coral, from North Carolina to Florida, from destructive fishing methods including trawls, bottom long-lines and dredges.  This collection of deepwater coral is one of the largest deep reef ecosystems in the world!

[caption id="attachment_617" align="alignright" width="281" caption="Corals are in danger. You can help."][/caption]

But it can’t survive without NOAA’s effort to regulate the fishing industry through cooperation, and that can’t happen without help from caring residents of planet Earth. This isn’t a crazy scheme to stop all fishing, that would be ridiculous.  Click the image for a closer look.

It’s easy; click this link and send the formatted note to our leaders.

http://takeaction.oceana.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25222

Want to see more coral? Get our DVD at hd2o.tv

Kind regards,

Paul