Slashdot Mirror
Invasive Species Ride Tsunami Debris To US Shore
An anonymous reader writes "When a floating dock the size of a boxcar washed up on a sandy beach in Oregon, beachcombers got excited because it was the largest piece of debris from last year's tsunami in Japan to show up on the West Coast.
But scientists worried it represented a whole new way for invasive species of seaweed, crabs and other marine organisms to break the earth's natural barriers and further muck up the West Coast's marine environments. And more invasive species could be hitching rides on tsunami debris expected to arrive in the weeks and months to come."
Agreed!!
Please ship some samples down here to the New Orleans area, we can find a way to cook anything....and make it taste good!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
1) where does "driftwood" come from then? I'm nearly certain that land-species (to say nothing of aquatic ones) have been migrating all over the world through all sorts of avenues probably about as likely or frequent as the washing up of what happens-this-time-to-be-a-manmade-object.
2) Not sure if you were joking, if so my apologies in advance for taking you literally. Of course, anyone who is interested in facts is aware that the 'great pacific garbage patch' (a colossal and deliberately sensational overstatement) is an area of sea where the density of microscopic plastic particulates is 'as high as' a single-digit number per cubic meter of water. I know a lot of people were fooled by environmentalists' clever 'accidental (?) misappropriation' of a picture of some plastic trash floating in the water into thinking that's what the patch is. It's effectively some water where there's a little more plastic DUST.
-Styopa
Grab a chunk of natural, untreated wood and leave it in water for a few months. It'll absorb water and sink like a rock, then it'll rot. It's not going to be carrying passengers across an ocean, unlike treated everything-proof wood you'd use on a ship or a dock.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I sure hope no one tries to intervene and prevent this from happening. This is not a man made occurrence, but an entirely natural one.
Right. Pressure-treated wood that doesn't become waterlogged, sink, and rot is completely natural.
Stick a natural log in a tank of water for a couple months. It will absorb water, sink to the bottom of the tank, and then start to rot. It would drift maybe a couple hundred miles in an ocean before that happens. It's not going to be crossing an ocean.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
"scientists worried it represented a whole new way for invasive species of seaweed, crabs and other marine organisms to break the earth's natural barriers"
How exactly is this "a new way"? I'm pretty sure there have been tsunami's and other extreme weather conditions for quite some time that are capable of carry live organisms hundreds or thousands of miles from where they started.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Grab a chunk of natural, untreated wood and leave it in water for a few months. It'll absorb water and sink like a rock, then it'll rot. It's not going to be carrying passengers across an ocean, unlike treated everything-proof wood you'd use on a ship or a dock.
Contrary to your claim, a piece of driftwood has been floating in Crater Lake, Oregon for well over a century.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".