Image (c) Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
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What is a salt marsh?
A salt marsh is the habitat where freshwater (from rivers and lakes) mixes with the saltwater (from the ocean). The salt marshes that I am most familiar with have tall cordgrasses near the water’s edge. Usually, it is a mix of two types of cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora and Spartina pattens. Away from the water’s edge […]
So what’s up with that sand stuck between my toes?
Sand is basically the tiny particles eroded from the mountains or rock formation closest to the beach you are standing on as well as some other bits and pieces. The three main ingredients common to all the beaches are: quartz, old shell parts, and decayed materials from the sea and land. I saw the most […]
Book Review: The Great Snail Race by Don Jordan
Kids ages 3-7 and parents looking for fun, original read-aloud picture books will relish The Great Snail Race, an engaging story about a little snail who could. The little snail leads a comfortable sea life on Latimer Bay right in front of boy Luca’s house; but his kind are known as some of the slowest creatures […]
Better Practices needed for BP
Still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, coastal Louisiana is watching from the sidelines as slow moving oil slick creeps upon its shores. The oil is from the tanker DeepWater Horizon leased by the BP (used to stand for British Petroleum but in 2007 Britain’s third largest company started marketing themselves as Beyond Petroleum for a more […]
CITES recognizes important marine species
You might think that sharks are a predator that we want to eradicate, but that’s far from the truth of the matter. For a healthy ocean we need the top predator. For 5 species of sharks – oceanic whitetip, scalloped hammerhead (pictured below), great hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, and porbeagle sharks – there was some inspiring […]
Wednesday Wisdom: Susan Rockefeller
Susan Rockefeller is the CEO and Founder of Protect What Is Precious and Editor-In-Chief of Musings Magazine. Find more great ocean and conservation quotes here and please feel free to share with your friends and family! Also, ask away! If you have a question about something you found on the beach or just something you’re […]
What is oceanography?
If you take biology, physics, meteorology, chemistry, geology, geography and mix them all together (via the same concept as Ekman transport) you come up with oceanography. See this very concise infographic from the Sea Blog for a visual depiction of how it all comes together. Click here to understand the difference between a marine biologist […]
Beyond the bag: Other plastics being banned
Lonely Whale, a UK Marketing Company, took over Seattle in 2017 for its “Strawless in Seattle” campaign and this summer (effective July 2018) Seattle will be the largest metropolitan city to ban the single-use plastic straw. Many local and some national brands, including Century Field and Seattle Seahawks, Safeco Field and Seattle Mariners, and Sea-Tac […]
Scientists discover new living fossil. What is a living fossil?
A living fossil is not Russell Johnson (the professor from Gilligan’s Island) or dear Zsa Zsa Gabor (God bless you for holding on!). I’ll chop it down to say that a living fossil is an organism that more closely resembles a fossil than anything living. For instance, the Atlantic horseshoe crab resembles the fossil record […]
April is National Frog Month
Yes, that is correct – April is National Frog Month. However, this is not a post about the amphibian, but is all about the frogfish! Contrary to popular belief, it’s easy being green if you’re a frogfish. First of all, you can change colors from green to black, or red, or orange, or yellow, or […]
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- Hurricane vs. Cyclone vs. Typhoon
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- How to handle a horseshoe crab
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- Five awful puns about courtship in the sea
- Horseshoe crabs confirmed as members of arachnid family
- Beyond the bag: Other plastics being banned
I think it weighs 21.4 pounds