Mandarin Point at Bacong, Negros Oriental
November 11, 2006. First dive of the semester =)
Even though had a headache from a beginning cold and cough, went diving anyway to try out my brand new regulator and gauges =D my buddy, ian ray, assembled my reg for me. (of course, all headaches and illnesses disappeared underwater, as they always do)
Nice! Now how are those mini mounds created by the sea or it's creatures...hmmm?
ReplyDeleteIf you see me running around dumaguete or bacolod...it might not be me but my twin. =) Baka lang isipin mo bumatok at maling tao mabatukan. Hehee!
ReplyDeletepsychedelic! =) is that bioluminescence or a trick of the light?
ReplyDeleteHUGS,
jemi
with my favorite dive snack in the background!
ReplyDeletegreat shot!!!
ReplyDeleteunplanned pleasures? what does it brings? What about the callianassa mounds and bioluminescense? i dont have to be a marine biologist...
ReplyDeletei actually thought it was waves, but here's something from my consultant marine biologist ;-) :
ReplyDelete(http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n7_v150/ai_18621164?lstpn=article_results&lstpc=search&lstpr=external&lstprs=other&lstwid=1&lstwn=search_results&lstwp=body_middle.)
Shrimp make intricate seabed labyrinth - mud shrimp Callianassa truncata make conical mounds on sea floor as they build tunnels to form chemical links between sea and sediment
Science News, August 17, 1996 by Erik Skindrud
Scuba diving off the Italian island of Giglio in 1991, Wiebke Ziebis floated over a miniature underwater moonscape. The seabed was pimpled with volcanolike cones, each just a few centimeters high (upper photo).
When the local people confessed their ignorance of this oddity, Ziebis began to dig into it. Now, the doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, reports with her colleagues in the Aug. 15 Nature that the conical mounds are made by the tiny mud shrimp Callianassa truncata (inset), whose tunnels provide a chemical connection between sea and sediment. Such tunnel fields are widespread off the coasts of Greece and Italy, Ziebis says.
Adjacent to each cone is a shallow depression in the seabed that funnels water into the system. Without the shrimp and its tunnels, Ziebis says, oxygen would penetrate only about 4 millimeters into the ocean floor. With them, oxygen travels more than half a meter down, allowing even tinier oxygen-breathing animals to populate the holes.
Ziebis found that the cones are tunnel outlets. Ammonium from decaying organic matter buried in the sediment flows through the system to the water above, helping to nourish phytoplankton-and thus the entire oceanic food chain. The team injected polyester resin into several tunnels, where it hardened, preserving the burrows' intricate structure for excavation later.
Robert C. Aller, a marine geochemist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said he was struck by Ziebis' innovative use of an acrylic-walled observation room sunk deep into the sediment (lower photo), enabling divers for the first time to directly measure the activities of animals burrowing beneath the sea. Tubes through the walls of the cubicle enabled Ziebis and her coworkers to sample the oxygen and ammonium concentrations in the tunnels at various depths as well as to gauge the rate of water exchange.
Ziebis expressed wonder that "these relatively small animals can build such complex burrow structures and complex architecture."
COPYRIGHT 1996 Science Service, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
haha ok, will keep that in mind. but hope to see YOU here, too ha =)
ReplyDeleteit's actually the blueness of the sea, because this is about 50 feet under =) i guess nice na rin effect no, even if you don;t see the actual colors. isn't it great to know that God likes pink? =D
ReplyDeletethanks! =) used the flash, but forgot to bring my diffuser plate, which would've made it look more natural. next time...
ReplyDeleteNindota gud ani Nin!!!
ReplyDeleteBioluminescent characteristic among marine organisms is only activated at night for foraging or predator deterrence. Although symbiotic algae (responsible for photosynthesis) resides in coral, not one type exhibits flourescence. The pinkish coloration of corals can be explained by the varying magnitude of wavelengths absorbed along the water column. Red and violet are absorbed within the first few meters thereby resulting to the pinkish coloration of Acanthastrea spp.
ReplyDeleteyep, actually, bioluminescence (from my experience) comes in white, blue and green--looking something like a piece of lightsaber rather than any definite form like a coral. since they're plankton, they can look like stars dotting a night sky, or they can clump together into weird shapes. i've seen them as snakes and spiralling jellyfish.
ReplyDeletei've also read that the zooxanthellae in corals (symbiotic algae, or "symbionts", if you want to talk star wars =) DO have fluorescent pigments, but i don't think any of them are bioluminescent since they function during the day (for photosynthesis).
"Australian scientists have found that corals contain a kind of sunblock called fluorescent pigments. These pigments form a kind of shield around the zooxanthellae and protect them from the harmful effects of sunlight at high temperatures. The pigments change the harmful UV and blue wavelengths in sunlight to softer, lower energy wavelengths like green and yellow.
Fluorescent corals survive bleaching events better than non-fluorescent corals, and every species of coral has some varieties that have fluorescent pigments. Over time, more fluorescent pigments may develop to protect the corals. Even though non-fluorescent varieties may die out, there will be some corals that have the fluorescent pigments and therefore may survive."
http://www.science.org.au/nova/076/076key.htm
google "coral bleaching fluorescent" and you'll find other sites talking about it.
and they DID look pink even when i used the flash! so i don't think it was because of the wavelengths =)