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Oil Exploration Leads To Video of a Mysterious Elbowed Squid
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Nov 27, 2008 05:41 PM
from the that-is-one-freaky-cephalopod dept.
from the that-is-one-freaky-cephalopod dept.
eldavojohn writes "A rare glimpse from Shell Oil of a giant squid brings to light the strange relationships some deep sea marine biologists have with drilling companies. The video of the squid (Magnapinna) is very rare as this creature remains largely a mystery to science. While some are concerned of a conflict of interest, biologists and big oil sure make for strange bedfellows. The video is from 200 miles off the coast of Houston, TX and about 4,000 feet down." Looking at this creature gives me the willies, frankly.
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Nice animal (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice animal (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nice animal (Score:5, Funny)
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Terror from the deep! (Score:4, Funny)
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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, Cthulhu ask us if we could go drilling for Oil at another place rather than at Rlyeh, because He would rather like to be left alone slumbering in peace, thank you very much.
All this noise gives Him maddening head aches....
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Re:Nice animal (Score:5, Informative)
yea, that video gave me the chills. at first it looked sorta like the alien from Independence Day, but about 100 times creepier. but once i actually understood what i was seeing, i was just in awe at the beauty of such a bizarre living creature. these kinds of discoveries just emphasize the reason we need to support ecological conservation all the more. imagine all of the millions of other bizarre and beautiful creatures out there still unknown to science.
for those who are interested in other video clips of Magnapinnidae, here's a page [si.edu] with several short clips and screen captures. most of them are poor quality, as they seem to be VHS-rips, but the 6th and 8th clips are pretty amazing.
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Re:Nice animal (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Nice animal (Score:5, Funny)
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Oil and Squid (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Ecological conservation (Score:4, Informative)
actually, Bigfin squids were first discovered in 1907 [wikipedia.org], and the species in this particular video isn't new either. if you're talking about this particular specimen that's captured the video, then you may be right. but otherwise, deep sea drilling hasn't contributed much to our scientific understanding of this species.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shoot the cameraman. (Score:5, Informative)
Someone please shoot the asshole controlling the camera
Chill out - the camera's servo only has one speed as should be obvious from the panning when the view zooms out versus when it zooms in. You would not have done any better.
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Re:Shoot the cameraman. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because I'm sure that the oil companies are only using barely trained idiots to operate their multi million dollar ROVs for their exploration of oil worth billions.
Seriously, WTF? Do you think they spend all that money on oil exploration only to have some tool operating the ROV who doesn't know how it works?
If you knew the squid was going to be there and rehearsed it, you might have gotten a better shot. If you were operating the ROV in real time and saw this thing, your odds of doing better are pretty slim.
Cheers
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Re:Shoot the cameraman. (Score:4, Insightful)
Videography is not limited to just the narrow uses to which you are acquainted.
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Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
biologists and big oil sure make for strange bedfellows
Really? I would think that they (deep sea drillers and deep sea biologists) have learned quite a bit from each other over the years.
--
IP address Finding [ipfinding.com]
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Environmentalists need to set the jihad switch to off and try rational discussion with the deep sea outfits for a change.
I'm fairly sure they'd be quite happy to load all of their deep sea platforms up with tethered, submersible, camera-wielding drones and drastically increase the amount of deep water footage and readings scientists are able to gather.
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Three things occur to me : (in decreasing order, probably) drilling mud coating the surface of rock cuttings discharged over the side ; unstable and/ or soluble minerals as part of the rock cuttings themselves ; heat from the cuttings. If you're using oil-based mud (technically, invert emulsion drilling fluid with a low-dielectric continuous phase and a high-dielectric discontinuous phase ; the chemical nature of the continuous phase is varied but it is universally some degree of bad news for any skin it encounters ; I've got the chemical burns to prove it.) then it's unsurprising that dumping tons of it onto the seabed can cause problems in the surrounding areas. Less obviously, throwing tons of rock salt or anhydrite or unstable clay minerals has potential to do various degrees of nasty to water chemistry. There's also the other additives in the mud to consider - barytes is often associated with lead mineralisation, for example, raising the possibility of other forms of pollution. Finally, the rocks that come up from drilling are generally hot to some degree, and while the sea does have significant cooling power, when many tons are dumped into the sea in short order, it's within the bounds of credibility to change temperatures for a while, particularly within the seabed.
All of which is why discharge of cuttings coated with "oil" (natural or synthetic) is now forbidden in a number of areas. Which simply prompted the development of a range of "skip'n'ship" solutions which are loathed by drillers, but allow drilling to continue to use oil-based muds.
Well, you did ask!
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Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Interesting)
Research is research. The data doesn't 'care' who paid for the camera. Besides it is in Shell (or whomever's) interest to understand as much as possible about the location they plan on dumping large amounts of money on.
What happens if there is an alien colony down there? Wouldn't you like to know? Don't go expecting Shell to fund a study of these things, but why wouldn't they show it to people. Looks pretty cool actually.
And didn't the camera say about 7500 feet (not 4000 as in TFS)?
Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Insightful)
The data doesn't care, but oil drillers are unlikely to give information that harms their potential to drill, and can afford to be "selective" on what they provide.
The conflict is potentially deeper than that. The oil drillers, by providing the hardware, may be able dictate the direction science takes.
Its no different really than the cigarette companies providing the labs for cancer research. Any scientist working in the lab who finds that 'cigarettes cause cancer' is out of work... any scientist who finds that cigarettes and cancer is unrelated gets increased funding and access to better equipment.
THAT is the real potential conflict of interest here.
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:4, Insightful)
Arthur C. Clarke:
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert."
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Informative)
This video was just something the oilmen spotted and thought was interesting enough to film.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, that would account for the 30-odd (sometimes very odd) video editors, graphics artists and CGI programmers I see occupying the 4 spare bedspace on a normal drilling rig.
Sure, the oil industry can hire all the graphics expertise that it needs, when it needs it. And when they're no longer needed ... well that's the difference between "contractor" and "core crew". (I say this with
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So you believe that atmospheric pollution, oil spills and groundwater contamination are myths and hysteria? Perhaps incidents like the Bhopal disaster [wikipedia.org] and the Exxon Valdez spill [wikipedia.org] could demonstrate that the risk to human and animal survival is very real, and based in observed fact.
Dude really, you're on the wrong forum. Perhaps www.RavingPsychoticIndustryDrones.com would be more to your liking.
Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:4, Interesting)
The Exxon spill may not be the best example. The cleanup efforts were probably more harmful than the spill itself, and the environment has completely recovered since then. My authority on the subject comes from having lived in Valdez, AK for nearly my entire life; I can provide further sources if need be.
This criticism should not be taken as arguing against your point in general.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Insightful)
The oil drillers believe in science as long as it supports their worldview. That is, drilling for more oil. As soon as a scientific finding conflicts with what they want, however, you can bet said belief wavers considerably.
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:4, Insightful)
The wonderful thing about this truth is that you can replace oil drillers with environmentalists, politicians, religious leaders, nazis, whatever, and it is still true.
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Re:Conflicts, always conflicts. (Score:5, Informative)
Warning, this [bbc.co.uk] could cause your politically biased head to explode.
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Hmm yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
This is why I don't eat creatures from the ocean.
Hopefully they'll return the courtesy.
Re:Hmm yeah... (Score:5, Funny)
Anything that lives that far down must be tough, it'd be like eating prawn flavoured tyres.
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Killed milions of them myself (Score:5, Funny)
Mother of all viruses? (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like a giant virus:
http://50milesmore.blogspot.com/2008/03/prepare-to-be-assimalated.html [blogspot.com]
Squiddy will give you a flu like no other.
Re:Mother of all viruses? (Score:4, Informative)
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Giant Alien Squid? (Score:3, Funny)
Someone tell Zack Snyder, maybe he can get some budget footage for the Watchmen movie, give it a proper ending.
Truth/Fiction (Score:5, Informative)
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Oh Shit (Score:5, Funny)
Nearly the perfect article! (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, a giant squid, a robot submarine AND big oil!
Now if only;
* The robot ran BSD, but formerly ran Vista
* The MAFIAA was claiming copyright on the film
* On close inspection, the squid had a google logo but was in fact an alien species
* Some jerk had just been granted a lame patent for 'swimming at great depths with tentacles'
We'd never need another!
Discovery Channel has had a few shows on this (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen at least three different shows on Discovery Channel about these squid that until a few years ago were considered by most biologists to be nothing by a myth.
One was about the first ever captured specimen of a Giant Squid -- it was almost microscopic and they couldn't keep any alive.
Later, one was about actually getting fleeting video of one in the wild.
Most recent was one about another kind of giant squid that's even bigger and was caught in a net accidentally. The fishing trawler was smart enough to quickly freeze it. In the show, they were able to thaw it carefully and do a dissection. Apparently one of the problems with scientists working with these is that thy decompose extremely rapidly.
Oil exploration is pushing serious camera time deeper than ever. At the same time, an awareness of the value to science of creatures that we don't know about is making inroads into fishing crews in even the most remote places where in the past such a find might simply have been discarded as waste.
There is a LOT of volume in the oceans, and we're far from understanding it in the kind of depth we one day will.
Amazing, and Ordinary (Score:5, Insightful)
Truly awesome video and a truly awesome creature visible for the first time. Awesome might even be a bit understated.
But, the manner in which it was discovered? As ordinary as dirt. Face it ... imperial expansion, military exercises and exploration of the furthest corners of the earth, and beyond, and below, are all pretty much the province of the miner, the soldier, the geologist, the imperialist paying those salaries. There is nothing new about how this was found ... it's how EVERYTHING is found. The hunter finds the range and extent of the animals in the local area. The mapping of America was done by fur traders and those seeking treasure. You could go on and on.
There are those who oppose commercial enterprise, who oppose war and the exercises that preparation for war entail, who find man is essentially unkind to both man and the world he lives in. But, they learn from the adventures and the wallets of the "Bad Man".
That Shell released this video is hardly a surprise. Our entire knowledge of the world around us is essentially paid for by those like Shell Oil and those who came before them. Shell Oil is as interested in advancing our knowledge as anyone; perhaps more so because they intend to live in this world where this particular creature was found.
To imply evil intent is really off base ... they have plenty of opportunity to be evil the markets, on Capital Hill, at the UN, or the WTO. Note that few endangered species are likely to be found in those places, that is the environment of man, and is also the place where you are most likely to encounter the environmentalist, PETA, and the like.
They don't go a mile or more under the ocean's surface ... Shell Oil does, though.
I have never met anyone who works in the field for companies like Shell who is not far more aware of the world around them than those who occupy the cities and rail against the destruction of our environment. They have tremendous respect for the environment and the absolute wonder of the world we live in. Those who sit at their computers or write letters about banning plastic bags have no concept of the outdoors, usually. In fact, they rarely go about exploring the very city they live in.
one of the lessons of evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
is that the same anatomies keep getting reinvented for various reasons: environment, food source, etc.
so you have dolphins mimicking the body plans of fish
you have bats mimicking the body plans of birds
you have the herds of grazers during the dinosaur age and the predators who track them, and you have the herds of grazers in our age and the predators who track them
the same bodyplans and anatomical features and feeding strategies keep getting reinvented
and here, you have a squid, who has evolved to live like a jellyfish
Re:Cthulhu (Score:5, Funny)
Not Cthulhu, but possibly a distant cousin of something else:
He speculates that Magnapinna passively waits for prey to bump into the sticky appendages
Could these sticky appendages also be... noodly [wikipedia.org]?
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Re:Cthulhu (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Size? (Score:5, Informative)
Based on analysis of videos not unlike the one captured at the Perdido site, scientists know that the adult Magnapinna observed to date range from 5 to 23 feet (1.5 to 7 meters) long
From the second page of the article.
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Re:I, for one... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Who knows what else is down there? (Score:5, Funny)
Oil Shmoil, I smell a new revenue stream for porn.
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Re:Who knows what else is down there? (Score:5, Funny)
But how would the giant squid be able to pay?
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