Category — Antarctic Connection

A major earthquake (magnitude 7.4) hit 90km south of Macquarie Island this morning at 10:30am local time.

No tsunami was generated.

Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island and a part of the state of Tasmania, Australia.

Macquarie Island is on the Macquarie Ridge at the junction of the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates. Large earthquakes (6 or greater on the Richter scale) occur approximately once a year.

This sea cucumber — held by Sadie Mills of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research — is known as a sea pig.

Mills and colleagues from around the world, including Tasmania, collected the organism, among more than 30,000 animals, during a marine census of southern Antarctica earlier this year.

Sea cucumbers are part of a group of marine animals that inhabit the seafloor, including sea squirts, sea stars (starfish), sea slugs, corals, clams, sponges, and urchins.

AFP photograph

Climate change may threaten the survival of king penguins — one of the most iconic creatures of the Antarctic, researchers warn.

A long-term study of the penguins, known for their distinctive yellow feather ‘ear muffs’, reveals just a slight ocean warming had a significant effect on their breeding success.

International researchers behind the project say that under current predictions for global warming, the penguins face the risk of being wiped out.

King penguins — the second largest penguin after the emperor penguin — live in the sub-Antarctic islands, including Macquarie Island, south-east of Tasmania. There are about 2 million breeding pairs worldwide.

Their diet consists mainly of small fish and squid, and because of their one-year breeding cycle they are considered sensitive to any seasonal change in food supply.

Over nine years, researchers studied the birds on an island in the Crozet Archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, marking 456 penguins with electronic tags.

They found that high sea-surface temperatures reduced the amount of marine prey available to the king penguins, forcing them to travel further in search of food.

According to their calculations, a sea-surface warming of 0.26 degrees would lead to a 9% decline in the adult penguin population.

Current models by the UN’s panel of climate scientists predict an average increase of 0.2 degrees a decade for the next two decades.

(Via The Age)

The body of a minke whale and its calf are dragged onto the whaling ship

The Australian Federal Government says photographs taken by the Customs ship the Oceanic Viking of Japanese whalers killing a whale and its calf will strengthen any legal case against the whalers.

The pictures, released by the Government today, show a slaughtered minke whale and its calf being hauled up the ramp of the Japanese ship, the Yushin Maru.

Customs has also released video of whales being harpooned from the ship.

The Government is extending the duration of its whaling surveillance program and says the Attorney-General is still considering what kind of legal action should be taken and who it should be brought against.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says the pictures released today support Australia’s position.

‘I think it’s explicitly clear from these images that this is indiscriminate killing of whales, where you have a whale and its calf killed in this way,’ he said.

‘To claim that this is in anyway scientific is to continue the charade that surrounded this issue from day one.’

Launching the ABE from Southern Surveyor. Image credit – CSIRO

Scientists aboard the research vessel, Southern Surveyor, return to Hobart today with a collection of coral samples and photographs taken in the Southern Ocean at greater depths than ever before.

Using a remotely operated submersible vehicle the international research team captured images of life found on deep-sea pinnacles and valleys up to three kilometres beneath the Ocean’s surface.

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Posted by Dave Walsh, onboard the Esperanza

It’s been an intense morning here on the Esperanza - after eleven days preventing the Japanese whaling fleet from killing whales, this morning we blocked the Nisshin Maru from refuelling in Antarctic waters from the dodgy Panamanian-registered vessel Oriental Bluebird.

As part of a dramatic non-violent protest against the whaling fleet’s activities in the Southern Ocean, Jetske and Heath placed their inflatable boat between the factory ship and refueling vessel, as the massive two ships tried to come alongside to refuel.

However, despite radio calls explaining our protest and plan, the vessels continued to close in on each other — and after half an hour, the inflable was forced out, with Jetske nearly getting caught by a cable. Only then did the refuelling begin.

Amazing footage of synchronised swimming from a pod of killer whales determined to make a meal of a lonely seal adrift on an ice floe.

(Via Zooillogix )

John Elder of The Age reports that:

The feral destruction of the Macquarie Island’s native vegetation is akin to Ayers Rock being taken over by 100,000 clowns with jackhammers or the Great Barrier Reef being used as torpedo practice …

… it’s like one of those movies where a team of rough and tough heroes are called upon to save the world. In this case, the survival of one of Australia’s ecological treasures depends on finding a dozen disciplined hunting dogs — and finding them fast.

Since rabbit numbers exploded on the World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island over the past couple of years, massive landslips - caused by overgrazing and tunnelling by the 100,000 bunnies - have sent entire hillsides falling into the Southern Ocean, killing king penguins and wiping out crucial albatross nests. At the same time, a living carpet of rats and mice have been feasting on the eggs in penguin and seabird colonies.

Macquarie is a sub-Antarctic island about 1500 kilometres south of Tasmania and a critical breeding ground for seabirds, including four endangered species of albatross, and delicate plant systems. It also serves as a unique geological snapshot of the world’s evolution, a record of life.

There’s more about Macquarie Island here …

Since our launch on July 1 we’ve recorded visitors from 117 countries, and had the odd email wanting to know where our island is situated.

With a bit of help from satellites and The Living Earth we’re able to show you exactly where we exist on the famous blue marble. Visit them to see a much larger image.

Tasmania is the last bit of green on the bottom, below Australia, with Antarctica being the next stop if you continue south. We’ve added a little white arrow to rub it home.

Antarctica has a special place in the hearts of Tasmanians, and a visitor has pointed out this amazing photograph of Orcas sprinting along a channel which has opened in the ice.

It comes from an equally impressive photo-essay on Time magazine’s web site — Life Beneath Antarctic Ice by photographer Norbert Wu, who writes:

They are headed deep into McMurdo Sound, where they hope to find food.

They must hurry, however, for wind conditions can cause the channel to freeze again, cutting off the whales’ access to air.