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Sustainable Ecosystems and Community News - ENN
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Sustainable Ecosystems and Community News - ENN
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First-of-Its-Kind Map Details the Height of the Globe's Forests
ScienceDaily (July 21, 2010) — Using NASA satellite data, scientists have produced a first-of-its kind map that details the height of the world's forests. Although there are other local- and regional-scale forest canopy maps, the new map is the first that spans the entire globe based on one uniform method.
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New NOAA Analysis Gives Further Clues about Location and Movement of Subsurface Oil in Gulf – and how little of it there is
Remember the debate about the subsurface "plumes" or oil released by the leaking BP well in the Gulf of Mexico? A new report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy about subsurface oil monitoring in the Gulf of Mexico contains preliminary data collected at 227 sampling stations extending from one to 52 kilometers from the Deepwater Horizon/BP wellhead.
The data shows that the movement of subsurface oil is consistent with ocean currents and that the concentrations continue to be more diffuse as you move away from the source of the leak. This confirms the findings of the previous report.
The report comes from the Joint Analysis Group (JAG), which is comprised of the afore mentioned agencies and was established to facilitate cooperation and coordination among the best scientific minds across the government and provide a coordinated analysis of information related to subsea monitoring in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Cork, Plastic, or Twist? The Cork Industry Tightens the Screws on Winemakers
More wineries are moving towards plastic bottles and aluminum caps and away from cork stoppers. Some would say this is unfortunate for a host of reasons. Harvesting cork is an ancient practice that keeps a cluster of cork trees, which are almost entirely in Portugal and Spain, alive.
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BP eyes new option for plugging well
BP Plc defended its embattled chief executive on Wednesday and denied he would soon leave as the company prepared to launch within days a new approach to ending the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
CEO Tony Hayward, criticized for a series of public relations gaffes and failed efforts to end the disaster, has the full support of the company's board and will remain in his job, a BP spokesman said. The spokesman dismissed a Times of London report that Hayward would step down within 10 weeks.
In response to the spill, big oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell said they would spend $1 billion to develop a new spill containment system for the Gulf of Mexico.
It will aim for water depths up to 10,000 feet and have an initial capacity to contain 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons/15.9 million liters) of oil per day. The failed BP well is a mile below the ocean surface.
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New 'walking' fishes discovered in Gulf oil-spill zone
Two new fish species — with pancake-flat bodies, wiggling lures on their faces, and elbowed fins for "walking" on the seafloor — have been discovered in the path of spewing Gulf of Mexico oil. One of these pancake batfishes lives in the northern Gulf where oil is already spreading from the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
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Obama sets plan for oceans, Great Lakes
President Barack Obama set a new policy on Monday intended to improve coordination of uses of U.S. coastal waters ranging from recreation to commercial fishing to offshore drilling.
As his administration contends with the BP Plc oil spill, Obama was to sign an executive order creating a single National Ocean Council to make sense of the huge number of rules from different agencies on the use of U.S. coastal waters and the Great Lakes.
The plan, the final recommendation of an Ocean Policy Task Force that Obama established last year, does not set new rules for offshore drilling, commercial or recreational fishing or other uses of U.S. waters.
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Engineers detect seepage near BP oil well
Engineers monitoring BP Plc's damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico detected seepage on the ocean floor that could mean problems with the cap that has stopped oil from gushing into the water, the government's top oil spill official said on Sunday.
Earlier on Sunday, BP officials had expressed hope that the test of the cap which began Thursday could continue until a relief well can permanently seal the leak next month. Oil gushed from the deep-sea Macondo well for nearly three months until the new cap was put in place last week.
But late on Sunday, the U.S. government released a letter to BP Chief Managing Director Bob Dudley from retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen that referred to an unspecified type of seepage near the mile-deep (1.6 km-deep) well along with "undetermined anomalies at the well head."
"I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the well head be confirmed," Allen wrote.
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