The Earth Story

Lonar: a unique impact crater in India just turned pink Lonar Crater in the Maharashtra province of India was originally thought to be of volcanic origin. It is found in the middle of the Deccan Traps, one of the largest flood basalts (512,000 km2) on the planet. However, later investigations revealed that Lonar is the only impact crater on earth preserved in basalt.

The Milky Sea

While the Milky way up in the airy sky is something we frequently share here on the Earth Story, it has a watery cousin down below, in which teeming life resembles the teeming sky above, glowing softly to itself. Long a matter of legend amongst seafarers (and dismissed by sceptic scientists) , being mentioned (amongst others) in Jules Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea, the phenomenon was finally captured and turned into fact by satellite observation back in 2005. Bioluminescence is light produced by life, encountered in creatures of the deep such as angler fish (who use their light as lures for prey) and bacteria, and the Milky Sea is the world's largest known such zone (over 15,000 square km). It is caused by a huge seasonal concentration of bacteria (probably Vibrio harveyi), and was rediscovered by a bit of detective work by a scientist working for the US Navy. He found a log from a ship that had crossed the region in 1995 describing the glowing sea and decided to see if there was any sign of it visible from space.

Using the archives from the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program for the night in which the ship crossed the area, he found this large bright area in the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa. The archive revealed it glowed like this for three days that January before fading. How the bacteria bloom and concentrate there remains unknown. There are other such areas reported in historical records, including near Somalia and Indonesia.

The image has been processed, and the appropriate colour for the bacterial glow added, since the satellites can only see in black and white at night. To cap it all, old Jules Verne placed his fictional recounting of what was then one of the ocean's many legends on the same date, 27 January.

Loz Image credit: Steven Miller

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/milky-seas http://biolum.eemb.ucsb.edu/organism/milkysea.html Original paper, paywall access: http://www.pnas.org/content/102/40/14181.long

This cool little herbaceous perennial plant is called Physalis alkekengi. Due to its paper like appearance, it also commonly referred to as a Chinese or Japanese lantern. This plant blooms during the winter months and then dries in spring. Once it has dried out, the outer skin resembles a thin mesh and inside the bright red fruit can now be seen. -Jean Images from wikicommons

Covering the oceans in darkness….

Phytoplankton blooms produce some fascinating textures in Earth’s oceans, and consequently we’ve shared images of them taken from orbit many times (http://tinyurl.com/qhzwbr9, http://tinyurl.com/pwasxol). This bloom, however is a bit different from the others – in this photo from NASA’s Aqua satellite, it looks, well, black. This bloom is produced by an organism known as Myrionecta rubra, described as a ciliate protist. It’s not true phytoplankton since it doesn’t use the sun for energy and consequently it is showing up as a different color. Supposedly if viewed close-up, these waters appear red, but they are quite dark in this satellite photo. If you look close to the shoreline west of the dark bloom, you can in fact see a smaller, blue-green bloom with the more normal color expected from phytoplankton.

Interestingly, you can almost certainly track the source of this bloom coming out of Guanabara Bay and the city of Rio de Janeiro. The normal ocean currents in this area should flow to the south along the coastline, controlled by the gyre pattern in the south Atlantic, exactly as seen here. Some sort of nutrient is enabling the growth of this organism and that nutrient is being carried south from the inhabited areas near Rio along the coastline.

-JBB

Image credit: NASA http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=82968

echinopsisfreak Hello there! Today we have 5 ‘Infinity’ flowers blooming. I love the unusual rusty color of these beauties. Note too the unusual way the flowers sort of unwind to open … something I try to capture in a couple of close-up clips. The flowers are 13 cm/5” in diameter once open. Each clips shows ~8 hours of blooming action smooshed into a few seconds. Hope you enjoy. Have a great week!

Whiting This image of Lake Ontario was taken by the International Space Station Expedition 36 crew. It shows an example of a “whiting event.” Whiting occurs when an abundance of calcium carbonate particles form in water and is usually caused by changes in water temperature or an increase in photosynthesis by microscopic marine life. The increased photosynthesis reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the water, which also changes the acidity and allows the calcium carbonate particles to form. Although the white milky appearance resembles a phytoplankton bloom, scientists on the ground studying the lake confirmed this particular case was a whiting event. -Amy Reference: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=81952 Image Credit NASA

The colors seen flying over the Tulip Fields of Holland in the spring are like nothing else on Earth.

Desert in bloom

Amboy Crater is a small volcano sitting in the middle of the Mojave Desert, in the area declared part of Mojave Trails National Monument (declared by President Obama in early 2016). Normally, sand, dirt, dark igneous rocks, and brush surround this small cone (https://tmblr.co/Zyv2Js21zM2TX), but this year it is instead surrounded by color. The rains that have soaked California this year, breaking the state’s drought, have triggered a wildflower bloom in the normally desolate desert. Bob Wick of the US Bureau of Land Management, which managed these remote areas before the Monument was declared last year, took this photo.

-JBB

Image credit: US BLM https://www.instagram.com/p/BRyjtR2BPeK/