Posted on 11/22/2008 7:24:28 PM PST by nickcarraway
Its slopes are thick with coral forests that grow 10 feet high. Fields of colorful sponges cover its rocky outcroppings. And marine species that until recently had never been seen by scientists teem all around it. On Thursday, a giant underwater volcano off California's Central Coast that some have compared to an aquatic "Lost World," was given national protection.
Davidson Seamount stands 7,546 feet above the ocean floor, in pitch black waters about 80 miles southwest of Monterey. Until eight years ago, almost nothing was known about it, largely because its summit sits 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
But as marine biologists began to send unmanned submarines to explore it, they found a
pristine environment rich with life, from red crabs with spindle legs to anemones that close like Venus flytraps.
"We were astounded to discover the variety of life, and particularly the size of the animals," said Dave Clague, a geologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Moss Landing. "Some of the corals are truly huge. The big pink bubble gum corals get at least 10 feet tall. And they are hundreds of years old. We'd never seen anything like that."
On Thursday, the Bush administration published final regulations to expand the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary by 14 percent to include Davidson Seamount. The first such expansion since Congress and President Bush's father established the sanctuary in 1992, the newly protected waters total 775 square miles — an area more than half the size of Yosemite National Park.
All offshore oil drilling is banned in the Monterey sanctuary, which stretches from the Marin headlands near the Golden Gate Bridge along 276 miles of coastline to Hearst Castle. With the new boundaries, the drilling ban will be extended to Davidson
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Ok,, 80 miles offshore,, in 4000 feet of water. Ill be the one to say it. Why should i possibly want it preserved? This is like designating areas of the moon as conservation areas.
If you can get a drill pipe 4000 feet down and suck it dry,, good for me. I suspect thats why it needs “protection”, its probably chock full of oil, and easier to reach than the seabed.
And we should fish it too,,, for Tuna,, with those huge nets.
Insane,,,, just insane. Also,,, i hope we checked with the UN to be sure it was legal and doesnt interfere with any pirates.
Let’s blow it up with TNT! That should yield a lot of fish too and look pretty cool as well. There is nothing in nature that should be hands-off to profit-making.
It doesn’t sound like it needs protection. Somebody needs protection money apparently.
You know,,, i think you’re correct? I can’t think offhand of anywhere on land we drill for oil on volcanos. This also raises the question,,, what is it being protected FROM? Runaway development?? overtaxing its water supply? Roaming nomes? Logging the coral forest? Too much tourism? It’d easier to go into low earth orbit.
Have we gone insane? The issues facing this nation and my government had time for this?
And i bet a government team, of at least 10 people, has worked on NOTHING but this for a year or two. (i know,,thats so underestimating as to be endearingly innocent,,, just let me be naive)
Oh lord,, thats it,, isnt it? There will be some university with a bazzillion dollar grant to play with their little robot submarine for the next 35 years.
what if someone pays me to poop in your water supply? would that be ok? or are there some things in nature that should be off limits to profit-making?
“The Davidson Seamount is a large seamount located in the Pacific ocean, 120 kilometers southwest of Monterey, California. It is approximately 42 kilometers long and rises 2400 meters off the ocean floor, although it is still more than a kilometer underwater.”
I assume it’s a dormant volcano, but you never know.
Do you believe that capitalism operates according to enlightened self-interest? Pooping in a water supply isn’t enlightened or self-interested if you know what the effects are. Certainly the settlers at Jamestown would have eschewed it if they’d known how low it would lay them and their capitalist dreams.
And why would anyone pay you to do such a thing, anyway? There are plenty of people who don’t want the added costs of sewage treatment plants, operating on the idea that eliminating a cost is like an in-kind payment. In that regard, they are paying themselves to poop in their own water supply.
What would a Libertarian say about this choice? Where getting out of the way of business end and protecting nature begin? Your opinion?
Ironic isn’t it? Volcanoes are Mother Gaea’s engine of change for the environment, and here are her stupid children trying to “preserve” it. Momma Gaea won’t tolerate that.
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You're losing me here. And how does "Let's blow it up with TNT!" relate to profit-making ? As Tom Servo used to say, "I think we're getting into a weird area."
It was in reply to the original poster’s desire to use purse-seine fishing. If you are willing to go that far to catch fish, why not use explosives?
Fishing with dynamite has received universal disapprobation. It’s a joke; an emblem of selfish destructiveness. Are you seriously defending it?
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