Researchers might have found Amelia Earhart’s crashed plane

For NPR, Juliana Kim reports:

Deep Sea Vision, an ocean exploration company based in South Carolina, announced Saturday that it captured compelling sonar images of what could be Earhart’s aircraft at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The discovery was made possible by a high-tech unmanned underwater drone and a 16-member crew, which surveyed more than 5,200 square miles of ocean floor between September and December.

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Oceans that all the rivers drain

Rivers drain into oceans. Grasshopper Geography color-coded the rivers in the world by the ocean they drain into and made a series of maps.

But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows in which ocean does each of the world’s rivers end up. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I’ll make it myself – as usual. Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn’t so surprised any more that it didn’t exist.

It reminds me of the map that shows where a raindrop ends up.

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Mapping the sea floor

Jon Keegan on how USGS researchers collected data for 125 square miles of sea floor:

In 2004 and 2005, two research vessels, Ocean Explorer and Connecticut set off into the waters off Cape Ann, Massachusetts on a U.S. Geological Survey mission to map a section of the bottom of the sea. Equipped with cameras, advanced sonar and bathymetric scanners, these ships mapped 125 square miles of the sea floor capturing a detailed dataset that allowed U.S. Geological Survey scientists to characterize the makeup of the sediment and bedrock in waters up to 92 meters deep.

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Animated map of microplastics in the ocean

Using estimates based on satellite data, Joshua Stevens for NASA Earth Observatory mapped the concentration of microplastics in the ocean over time:

Researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) recently developed a new method to map the concentration of ocean microplastics around the world. The researchers used data from eight microsatellites that are part of the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission. Radio signals from GPS satellites reflect off the ocean surface, and CYGNSS satellites detect those reflections. Scientists then analyze the signals to measure the roughness of the ocean surface. These measurements provide scientists with a means to derive ocean wind speeds, which is useful for studying phenomena like hurricanes. It turns out that the signals also reveal the presence of plastic.

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Scale of ocean depths

We know the oceans are deep, but it’s difficult to grasp the scale of just how deep, because, well, it’s underwater. MetaBallStudios, a YouTube channel that focuses on perspective and 3-D animation, guides you through the depths of major bodies of water. You’ll pass notable on-land monuments along the way. [via kottke]

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Cooling Gulf Stream

This is quite a dive by Moises Velasquez-Manoff and Jeremy White for The New York Times. They look at the potential danger of melting ice from Greenland flowing into the Gulf Stream.

An animated map of currents and temperature, reminiscent of NASA’s Perpetual Ocean from 2011, shows what’s going on underwater. The piece flies you through as you scroll with a familiar view as if you’re in space looking down.

Keep reading though, and you’re taken underwater 800 feet below the surface. It’s like seeing the currents from a fish’s point of view.

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Scroll, scroll, scroll through the depths of the ocean

The oceans are deep. But how deep and what’s down there? Neal Agarwal provides this piece, The Deep Sea, that scales the depths of the ocean to your browser window. Scroll, scroll, and then scroll some more to see what sea life (and other things) reside at various depths.

Agarwal’s Size of Space piece from last month explores the size of space in a similar vein. It’s equally fun.

This is the internet I signed up for.

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Increasing ocean temperatures, decreasing ice

For National Geographic, Kennedy Elliot made a series of heatmaps that show the relative shifts in the ocean:

The oceans don’t just soak up excess heat from the atmosphere; they also absorb excess carbon dioxide, which is changing the chemistry of seawater, making it more acidic. “Ocean acidification is one simple and inescapable consequence of rising atmospheric CO2 that is both predictable and impossible to attribute to any other cause,” says oceanographer John Dore of Montana State University.

Great.

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Mapping the ocean undisturbed by humans

Researchers recently published estimates for the amount of area undisturbed by humans — marine wilderness — left on the planet. Kennedy Elliot for National Geographic mapped the results.

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Spotting rip currents

Rip currents are like hidden rivers near the shore that head out to sea. An unexperienced swimmer or surfer can get caught in one, panic, and drown. So The Sydney Morning Herald put together a guide on how to spot rips. The mix of video and graphics makes things more clear, as they better represent what people will actually see at the beach. And the overheads for many major beaches in Australia are also helpful. [Thanks, Neville]

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