Category: Other Page 127 of 182

The unity and continuity of the World Ocean, with relatively free interchange among its parts, is of fundamental importance to oceanography.[2] It is divided into a number of principal oceanic areas that are delimited by the continents and various oceanographic features: these divisions are the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean (sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic), Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Southern Ocean, defined by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) in 2000, based on evidence that this region of the World Ocean has a distinct ecosystem and a unique impact on global climate.[3] In turn, oceanic waters are interspersed by many smaller seas, gulfs, and bays.

A global ocean has existed in one form or another on Earth for eons, and the notion dates back to classical antiquity in the form of Oceanus.

Source: World Ocean – Wikipedia

In European folklore and folk-belief of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits (sometimes referred to simply as “familiars” or “animal guides”) were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic.[1] According to the records of the time, they would appear in numerous guises, often as an animal, but also at times as a human or humanoid figure, and were described as “clearly defined, three-dimensional… forms, vivid with colour and animated with movement and sound” by those alleging to have come into contact with them, unlike later descriptions of ghosts with their “smoky, undefined form[s]”.[2]

Source: Familiar spirit – Wikipedia

Taking the early Triassic animal fossils together with the evidence for extensive forests leads to the speculation that Triassic Antarctica was a refuge ecosystem where survivors of the Permian extinction rode out the event and the challenging environments of the early Triassic that prevailed in many other parts of the globe. You recall the other day I mentioned a paper that suggested that the tropical Triassic Earth might have been “lethally hot” and that ocean temperatures in the Triassic might have been so hot that life could not survive. The polar regions might have been enough cooler that they provided this refuge for life, which would have expanded across the planet as conditions became more favorable later in the Triassic and Jurassic.

Source: History of the Earth: September 21. Triassic Antarctica

The end-Permian mass extinction, which occurred around 250 million years ago, wiped out nearly all the world’s species. Typically, a mass extinction is followed by a ‘dead zone’ during which new species are not seen for tens of thousands of years. In this case, the dead zone, during the Early Triassic period which followed, lasted for five million years. […]

The dead zone would have been a strange world – very wet in the tropics but with almost nothing growing. No forests grew, only shrubs and ferns. No fish or marine reptiles were to be found in the tropics, only shellfish, and virtually no land animals existed because their high metabolic rate made it impossible to deal with the extreme temperatures. Only the polar regions provided a refuge from the baking heat.

Before the end-Permian mass extinction the Earth had teemed with plants and animals including primitive reptiles and amphibians, and a wide variety of sea creatures including coral and sea lillies.

This broken world scenario was caused by a breakdown in global carbon cycling. In normal circumstances, plants help regulate temperature by absorbing carbon dioxide and burying it as dead plant matter. Without plants, levels of carbon dioxide can rise unchecked, which causes temperatures to increase.

Source: Arctic News: Lethally Hot Temperatures During the Early Triassic Greenhouse

Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer, documented the earliest account pertaining to the inhabitants of the peninsula around the mid-first century AD, referring to them as the Catharrei, a designation which may have derived from the name of a prominent local settlement.[30][31] A century later, Ptolemy produced the first known map to depict the peninsula, referring to it as Catara.[31][32] The map also referenced a town named “Cadara” to the east of the peninsula.[33] The term ‘Catara’ (inhabitants, Cataraei)[34] was exclusively used until the 18th century, after which ‘Katara’ emerged as the most commonly recognised spelling.[33] Eventually, after several variations – ‘Katr’, ‘Kattar’ and ‘Guttur’ – the modern derivative Qatar was adopted as the country’s name.[35]

In Standard Arabic, the name is pronounced [ˈqɑtˤɑr], while in the local dialect it is [ˈɡitˤar].[11]

Source: Qatar – Wikipedia

On March 24, 1803, at the beach of ‘Harato-no-hama’ (原舎浜) in the Hitachi province, a strange ‘boat’ was washed ashore. It reminded the witnesses of a rice cooking pot, around its middle it had a thickened rim. It was also coated with black paint and it had four little windows on four sides. The windows had bars and they were clogged with tree resin. The lower part of the boat was protected by brazen plates which looked to be made of iron of the highest western quality. The height of the boat was 3.33 m (10.83 ft) and its breadth was 5.41 m (17.75 ft). A woman of 20 years was found in the boat. Her body size was 1.5 m (4.92 ft) and her skin was as white as snow. The long hair dangled smoothly down along her back. Her face was of indescribable beauty. The dress of the woman was of unknown style and no one could recognise it. She spoke an unknown language. She held a small box no one was allowed to touch. Inside the boat two unusually soft carpets of unknown style and fabric were found. There were supplies such as cake, kneaded food and meat. A beautifully decorated cup with ornaments no one could identify was also found.[1][2]

Source: Utsuro-bune – Wikipedia

The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean[1] or the Austral Ocean,[2][note 4] comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica.[6] As such, it is regarded as the fourth largest of the five principal oceanic divisions: smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean.[7] This oceanic zone is where cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters.[…]

The National Geographic Society does not recognize the ocean,[2] depicting it in a typeface different from the other world oceans; instead, it shows the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans extending to Antarctica on both its print and online maps.[14] Map publishers using the term Southern Ocean on their maps include Hema Maps[15] and GeoNova.[16] […]

Authors using “Southern Ocean” to name the waters encircling the unknown southern polar regions used varying limits. James Cook’s account of his second voyage implies New Caledonia borders it.[19] Peacock’s 1795 Geographical Dictionary said it lay “to the southward of America and Africa”;[20] John Payne in 1796 used 40 degrees as the northern limit;[21] the 1827 Edinburgh Gazetteer used 50 degrees.[22] The Family Magazine in 1835 divided the “Great Southern Ocean” into the “Southern Ocean” and the “Antarctick [sic] Ocean” along the Antarctic Circle, with the northern limit of the Southern Ocean being lines joining Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, Van Diemen’s Land and the south of New Zealand.[23]

Source: Southern Ocean – Wikipedia

Seymour Island is an island in the chain of 16 major islands around the tip of the Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Graham Land is the closest part of Antarctica to South America.[2] It lies within the section of the island chain that resides off the west side of the peninsula’s northernmost tip. Within that section, it is separated from Snow Hill Island by Picnic Passage, and sits just east of the larger key, James Ross Island, and its smaller, neighboring island, Vega Island.

Seymour Island is sometimes called Marambio Island or Seymour-Marambio Island, taking its resident Argentine base as its namesake (see section, Base Antárctica Marambio, below).

Source: Seymour Island – Wikipedia