Comments on: Deep Sixed

Deep Sixed

Artw — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 06:58:01 -0800

In the deep sea, low oxygen levels, scarce sunlight, and freezing water limit the rate at which items decompose: Something that might survive a few years on land could exist for decades underwater. - ROVs photograph trash on the ocean floor.

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:11:38 -0800

Not to make light of this as a problem, but I kind of love that single chair, all by itself, perfectly ready for sitting, where not even a diver ever could sit. The Coors can looks about 35 years old.

By: Sphinx

Sphinx — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:26:43 -0800

To be honest, it reminds me of the old 'Treasure Chest in a fishtank' motif. The flora and fauna seem to be adjusting quite well.

By: Katemonkey

Katemonkey — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:31:36 -0800

Don't you know that when the Old Ones rise, that chair is going to be the only place for supplication?

By: C'est la D.C.

C'est la D.C. — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:36:43 -0800

I'm shocked that these objects are perfectly intact at that depth. My brain just keeps saying, "No! They should all be squashed by the water pressure." I just can't fathom it.

By: rmd1023

rmd1023 — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:39:20 -0800

I'm really surprised the cardboard is still intact.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:42:26 -0800

I have this 20-year-old disintegrating ball cap that my wife wants me to get rid of... I've been working up a silly idea that I'd give it a big sendoff by throwing it into the ocean on a trip we're taking in a few weeks. I was already getting second thoughts about the ocean not needing my hat pollution; this cements that feeling.

By: Mezentian

Mezentian — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:42:30 -0800

We're number one!

By: Countess Elena

Countess Elena — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:43:11 -0800

Sometime in the '90s, I saw a picture of a 1954 newspaper, excavated from a landfill, still intact and readable. It had been so deeply buried that it couldn't decompose; there was nothing to break it up or expose it to the right kind of disintegrating action. I suppose the same thing is true of the cardboard.

By: Jode

Jode — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:49:04 -0800

What a nasty, filthy species we have become.

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:52:55 -0800

That really is awful. I hope the ROV's mum gave it a bag to put the trash into.

By: Stonestock Relentless

Stonestock Relentless — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 07:56:11 -0800

Check out this web gallery, found ten years below the surface of the internet. Also, that thing growing on the cardboard is so cool. The cardboard is not, though. The sea floor is pretty much as groovy as Mars.

By: pointystick

pointystick — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:22:03 -0800

I just can't fathom it. I see what you did there.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:27:50 -0800

"No! They should all be squashed by the water pressure." They're filled with water of the same pressure.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:29:35 -0800

What a nasty, filthy species we have become. Become? Twas ever thus. You do realize that a lot of what we know of the habits of our far-off ancestors comes from studying the junk they discarded?

By: drezdn

drezdn — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:36:39 -0800

By: Mapes

Mapes — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:53:54 -0800

As a rule, materials don't fail from hydrostatic pressure (i.e., equitriaxial stress, or pressure from all directions). They become denser, but they don't come apart. Instead, ductile materials fail from deviatoric stress (a 3-D generalization of shear) and brittle materials fail from tensile stress (pulling rather than pushing).

By: fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit

fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:59:12 -0800

Next up on Lake Dredge Appraisal... So far I don't see 100 iPhones, but the melancholy of that chair would fit right in.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:11:57 -0800

The lead and other chemicals leach into the food chain and are magnified at the top (humans). Best to eat seafood that is short-lived and low on the food chain.

By: Jehan

Jehan — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:46:16 -0800

Become? Twas ever thus. You do realize that a lot of what we know of the habits of our far-off ancestors comes from studying the junk they discarded?

As they say, "archeology is rubbish".

By: jon1270

jon1270 — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:47:28 -0800

Best to eat seafood that is short-lived and low on the food chain. Plankton, then?

By: Teakettle

Teakettle — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 09:57:15 -0800

I doubt I will ever make anything as pretty as that little octopus.

By: SisterHavana

SisterHavana — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 11:21:10 -0800

Am I the only one wondering if there was anything in that shipping container?

By: gjc

gjc — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 11:52:39 -0800

The pirate/hoarder/amateur archeologist in me wants really, really badly to see pictures from some of the inland seas and harbors. Can you imagine the fascinating things that have fallen to the bottom of the Mediterranean, Red, Black, Adriatic and Aegean seas? I might have to buy me an underwater drone. I just can't fathom it. I loathe you. Expertly done, sir or madam!

By: Canageek

Canageek — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:12:21 -0800

gjc: That would be awesome. Or possibly some really old deep-sea harbours.

By: Seymour Zamboni

Seymour Zamboni — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:42:37 -0800

I have gone down to the ocean floor (about 2 miles down) in the submersible Alvin a number of times to study mid-ocean ridge hot springs. One time we were looking for a site that had been previously named "Heineken". And we knew we were getting close when I spotted a Heineken beer can sitting their all by itself on the mud. So the seafloor trash can be a navigation aid I guess. As a rule, materials don't fail from hydrostatic pressure (i.e., equitriaxial stress, or pressure from all directions). They become denser, but they don't come apart. A tradition on Alvin dives is to decorate styrofoam cups and then place them in a fish-net bag attached to the outside of the vehicle. At 4 km down the hydrostatic pressure is about 400x greater than surface pressure and the cups shrink.

By: localroger

localroger — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:20:16 -0800

I have gone down to the ocean floor (about 2 miles down) in the submersible Alvin a number of times I'm not sure which is stronger, my envy or the feeling of my testicles trying to shrink back into my body at the horror of being in a little tin can 2 miles down with all that water pressure trying to kill me.

By: Seymour Zamboni

Seymour Zamboni — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:38:16 -0800

I was nervous the 1st time. But I just kept reminding myself that in almost 50 years of operation, a life has never been lost on an Alvin dive (but there have been a few close calls).

By: Riki tiki

Riki tiki — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 15:34:51 -0800

I almost think the environmental devastation is worth it just for that one perfect octopus.

By: edeezy

edeezy — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 15:41:22 -0800

I've done the styrofoam cup thing by attaching them to CTDs. I'm really jealous of anyone who's been down in Alvin. My favorite deep sea "trash" is whale falls. Such a small amount of nutrients make it to the deep seafloor that when a whale carcass sinks it supports scavengers for years and a microbial ecosystem for decades.

By: Long Way To Go

Long Way To Go — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:21:28 -0800

In the short term these are the fascinating archaeological finds of the late third millennium. In the longer term they're very perplexing marine fossils for whatever species evolves paleontologists after us.

By: steef

steef — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 17:36:07 -0800

Fucking tires. I once spent an afternoon on a local trash pick up along a one-mile stretch of the Shenandoah dredging eight or ten steel-belted radials out of the river into a rowboat. And a refrigerator that probably got washed off someone's porch. Before the barnacle-encrusted tires could be picked up from the boat landing someone dumped another dozen on the pile. Beer cans were all right. They recycle and sometimes you'd find an unopened one. River beer! MmmKah!

By: atchafalaya

atchafalaya — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 19:11:55 -0800

My first commercial dive in the ocean was just outside of Cameron, Louisiana, in about twenty feet of muddy water. I jumped off the stern of the Blue Streak No. 14, a tiny jackup boat we were working from, and landed on the bottom. As I pulled the downline taut and began to slog across the sea floor towards the pipeline we were working on, I began to realize I was walking on a carpet of trash. Bottles, bags, and cans.

By: Seymour Zamboni

Seymour Zamboni — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 19:39:48 -0800

they're very perplexing marine fossils for whatever species evolves paleontologists after us. I have often wondered to what extend our refuse will be preserved in the rock record. Maybe finding the remains of a plastic chair in a sedimentary rock layer derived from deep sea mud won't be too much of a problem for the future geologists. They will say "chair dumped off ship". When we find cobbles of granite mixed in with deep sea mud very far from any continental source today we often use the same kind of argument: "granite cobble was carried by iceberg and was dropped to the seafloor when iceberg melted".

By: ambrosen

ambrosen — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 11:20:24 -0800

I love the fact that when the Alvin sank in October 1968 (with no casualties), a cheese sandwich which was sunk inside the craft was actually eaten after Alvin's recovery in 1969.

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 12:22:37 -0800

I like the story of eating the swordfish that attacked the Alvin.

By: localroger

localroger — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:22:08 -0800

One gets the impression that there isn't much the Woods Hole guys won't eat.

By: tilde

tilde — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:05:00 -0800

I'm not sure which is stronger, my envy or the feeling of my testicles trying to shrink back into my body at the horror of being in a little tin can 2 miles down with all that water pressure trying to kill me. Doesn't want to kill you, wants you to come out and play.