Rare Prehistoric Shark Found In Japan

I was watching ctv news tonight,Remarkable pictures of a rarely-seen shark, whose species has swum the Earth's seas since prehistoric times. The 1.6 metre long deep sea frill shark was first spotted swimming in the shallows by a fisherman in Japan.

here is the video

http://www.kltv.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?ClipID1=1191913&h1=Rare%20Prehistoric%20Shark%20Found%20In%20Japan&vt1=v&at1=News

The staff of a Japanese aquarium took pictures of a rare frilled shark on Sunday, after it was discovered by local residents at Awashima Port in Shizuoka, southwest of Tokyo.This prehistoric shark is rarely seen alive as its natural habitat lies up to 1,280 metres (4,200 feet) deep under the sea. Experts at the Awashima Marine Park were able to examine the creature, which was a female, and film it swimming around.Unfortunately though it died a couple of hours after it was moved to its new environment.The eel-looking shark, with its mouth full of 300 trident-shaped teeth, measured 5.3 feet-long and weighed 16.5 pounds. Frilled sharks normally inhabit deep sea waters between 400 and 4,200 feet and rarely come to the surface. However they have been seen near the coast of Japan before, especially during the winter time when the water temperature drops and they have to get to warmer areas to feed. Frilled sharks can grow to a length of nearly 6.5 feet and eat deep-sea squids and other soft-bodied preys.Most specimen are found in the Japanese waters.

http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=5984316

David Helvarg

David Helvarg, a commentator on Public Radio International's Marketplace, is the author of The Blue Frontier: Saving America's Living Seas.This subjects looks at ocean mining, reef management, oil exploration, over-fishing, and government ineptitude when it comes to formulating sound environmental policy. The author clearly has divided his time between research libraries and the field. He has visited the underwater living quarters of scientists off the coast of Key West, climbed the towering oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

The History of Surfing
Thus, Lieutenant James King, commander of the Discovery, 1779, recorded in the ship's log the first written description of Hawaiian surfing by a European. "The Sport of Kings" -- An Ancient Hawaiian Tradition. By 1779, riding waves lying down or standing on long, hardwood surfboards was an integral part of Hawaiian culture. Surfboard riding was as layered into the society, religion and myth of the islands as baseball is to the modern United States. Chiefs demonstrated their mastery by their skill in the surf, and commoners made themselves famous (and infamous) by the way they handled themselves in the ocean. Anthropologists can only guess at the origin and evolution of wave-riding and surfboard construction in Polynesian culture, since there's no certainty about the timeline and movements of the Polynesians. Around 2000 B.C., the migration of humans out of Asia and into the eastern Pacific began, and Polynesians established themselves within a large triangle, with Aotearoa (New Zealand) at the south point, Tonga and Samoa along the western boundary and Tahiti and the Marquesas to the east.

To see more about the history of surfing check outhttp://www.surfingforlife.com/history.html

Canada has some good surf spots but it’s not your typical tropical surf experience here, you have to wear lots of neoprene year-round.

Here are a few pics

Vancouver Island

Lawrencetown can experience exceptionally high surf conditions as a result of tropical storms and hurricanes. In 1995, the lifeguards closed the beach for swimming or restricted beach use to a limited area on six days. Considerable media attention was received as surf conditions peaked at over four metres on several occasions. Lawrencetown's rough conditions can create many currents and rips.

Lawrencetown Beach

*An international team of scientists including Universite Laval biologist Connie Lovejoy has discovered new life forms in the Arctic Ocean. The team's findings are reported in the January 12 edition of the journal Science.*

Canadian connection in discovery of new ocean life form
Charlie Fidelman, CanWest News Service; Montreal GazettePublished:Friday,January12,2007

MONTREAL - An international team of scientists, which included Quebec biologist Connie Lovejoy, announced Thursday it has discovered a new form of life distinct from anything else in the ocean.They called the tiny plant micro-organism picobiliphytes.Published in today's edition of the journal Science, the team's findings are considered an important discovery, with implications for biodiversity starting at the bottom of the food chain.

"The ocean covers 70 per cent of planet Earth and we are only now coming to appreciate its rich and complex biodiversity,'' said Lovejoy, a specialist in marine phytoplankton, the Universite Laval biologist, who joined a European Union project launched to determine whether plant cells less then three microns - a millionth of a metre - existed around European coastal waters.
Despite evading scientific detection, these newly discovered algae - found among the smallest members of light-sensitive phytoplankton - are actually quite abundant, Lovejoy said. ''They went unrecognized because they probably looked like something else.''The discovery resulted from advance analysis of DNA sequences. The Arctic samples, analyzed by Lovejoy, matched the European ones.Because of their extremely small size, the only way to actually see them was by using a special stain, and then only under a fluorescent microscope.

About 50 per cent of global photosynthesis - a vital biochemical process in which carbon dioxide is transformed to oxygen - takes place in the world's oceans, which are dominated by microscopic algae.Scientists believe many species - some estimate up to 90 per cent - are not yet identified.''We are really waking up in terms of how we are thinking about the ocean,'' said Lovejoy, who is on the Canadian board of the Census of Marine Life, a worldwide initiative, involving dozens of institutions, to assess marine organisms in the world's oceans.

The discovery of picobiliphytes is important in the context of global warming and climate change, said Mart Gross, professor of conservation biology at the University of Toronto.''Just like this finding here, there are major discoveries being made about remarkable life forms that are very relevant to our understanding of the ecology of ecosystems,'' Gross said. ''We don't know even what is being impaired in our oceanic waters. It may very well be that (picobiliphytes) are an essential basis for the existence of life in the Arctic.''

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/news/story.html?id=39d98695-5fca-4e92-a03a-60001dd98634&k=51150

Here are some facts about pollution that i thought were very alarmimg....

---> Air pollution is responsible for 33% of the toxic contaminants that end up in oceans and coastal waters. About 44% of the toxic contaminants come from runoff via rivers and streams.

----> Each year, three times as much rubbish is dumped into the world's oceans as the weight of fish caught.

----> Refined oil is also responsible for polluting the ocean. More oil reaches the oceans each year as a result of leaking automobiles and other non-point sources than the oil spilled in Prince William Sound by the Exxon Valdez.

There's been a debate burning for years about the causes of global warming, but some scientists say the debate is over. The seas are rising, the earth is getting hotter and polar bears may be headed toward extinction...

***I believe it's never to late to start!!***

Ocean Ethanol is a energy development firm that is working on converting CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) into useful fuels, such as ethanol, methanol, ethylene and gasoline

Here is a little video on What If?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dufbz176gnk&mode=related&search

The Pacific Ocean, the world's largest water body, occupies a third of the Earth's surface. The Pacific contains about 25,000 islands (more than the total number in the rest of the world's oceans combined)almost all of which are found south of the equator.


I am from Vancouver, British Columbia I Have spent many years enjoying this ocean.