University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science

Two transparent spiny-lobster post-larvae pose on the tips of fingers.

By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience

These teeny-tiny infant lobsters may be small, but their commercial value is anything but. Spiny-lobster (Panulirus argus) hauls in the Caribbean bring in $1 billion a year, which is why researchers are taking a closer look at these lobster babies.

A new computer simulation, published June 7 in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals how lobster larvae travel in their first five months to a year of life, before they mature into adults. The study reveals that the Caribbean current, once thought to be a spiny-lobster superhighway, is actually a problem for little lobsters: If the larvae spend lots of time among the sea's strong currents, they're likely to be "flushed out of the system," study researcher Mark Butler, of Old Dominion University in Virginia, said in a statement.

"Despite some expected degree of ocean mixing in the region, we found relatively high levels of larvae settling back to their place of origin," Butler said. "This was surprising for larvae that spend up to 12 months traveling."

Instead of floating far away with other larvae, microscopic plants and other plankton, the spiny-lobster larvae move to deeper depths as they age, pulling themselves out of the strong currents and increasing their likelihood of settling safely on the ocean floor.

The findings are important for improving the sustainability of spiny-lobster fishing, the researchers said. Certain "source regions" in the Caribbean seem to supply most of the sea with its spiny lobsters, suggesting that nations in the regions need to band together to protect these hatching grounds, said study researcher Andrew Kough, a doctoral candidate at the University of Miami's School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

"If the nations receiving the influx of larvae and harvesting the adult lobsters were to invest and help protect these source regions, we believe that the future of the fishery will be more secure and may even improve," Kough said in a statement.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

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Substation Curacao

The "Curasub" submarine, a submarine of the Curacao Sea Aquarium that can descend nearly 1,000 feet undersea, immersed in water by the research vessel Chapman.

By Douglas Main
LiveScience

What lurks in the depths of the Bonaire reef, one of the healthiest and most diverse in the Caribbean Sea?

For the first time, researchers will try to answer just that question as they explore the deepest reaches of the reef, in the Dutch Caribbean, which includes the nearby islands of Bonaire and Curacao. Scientists set out Thursday in a special submarine that can descend nearly 1,000 feet (300 meters) beneath the surface, according to a release from Wageningen University, a research institute in the Netherlands from which the researchers hail.

The expedition will take place aboard the "Curasub," a submarine of the Curacao Sea Aquarium, and will take photographs and samples of organisms in the reef. After returning on June 3, the team will try to identify the creatures, to see whether any of them are newfound species. The organisms will be examined by collaborating taxonomists.

To help identify these species, researchers will generate DNA bar codes, a quick method of identification which involves sequencing short sections of DNA from a standardized region of the genome.

The "Curasub" collects samples near the Island of Curacao in the Caribbean.

The craft will look for new life beyond what is called the photic zone, at a depth of 650 feet (200 m), below which sunlight cannot support life. Creatures here survive in near-darkness and great pressure from the enormous bulk of water above.

Another recent dive by the Curasub to a nearby reef off Curacao turned up a colorful species of hermit crab that was previously only known through dead, dried specimens procured more than a century ago.

Curaçao and Bonaire are found in the southeastern Caribbean, just north of Venezuela.

Email Douglas Main or follow him on Twitter or Google+. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

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NERC / NOC

The deepest known vent in the world is nearly 5 kilometers (3 miles) beneath the ocean surface.

By Douglas Main
LiveScience

Researchers are exploring the deepest known set of hydrothermal vents in the world, at a site in the Caribbean nearly 5 kilometers (3 miles) beneath the ocean surface.

They've discovered a new vent there that is deeper than any previously known, said Andrew Thaler, a researcher on the expedition. The group explores the area using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) named Isis, which just completed its first dive Wednesday, Thaler said.  

The site, known as the Beebe Hydrothermal Vent Field, lays in the Cayman Trough, a deep section of the Caribbean south of Cuba. It lies about twice as deep as most known hydrothermal vents. Hydrothermal vents are fissures in the seafloor where geologically heated water spews forth.   

The researchers, led by Britain's National Oceanography Center and the University of Southampton, discovered the Beebe field in 2010, but have yet to detail all of its treasure trove of life and geochemical oddities.

Their previous studies have already revealed several species new to science, and this go-around will likely do the same. "From a biological perspective, we won't know if we've made a major discovery until we've had a chance to process samples back at the lab, but there's no doubt that a few new species will be described from this cruise," Thaler said.

NERC/NOC

Anemones and blind shrimp are bountiful near the vents.

The scientists set sail on the RS James Cooke on Feb. 6 and will be at sea until early March. They are blogging about the expedition at a site called Into the Cayman Abyss and tweeting using the hashtag #DeepestVents.

The vents are crawling with blind shrimp, fields of anemones, tube worms and other bizarre life forms, said Thaler, who studies these creatures as a researcher at Duke University. Isis has already returned with samples of seawater and wildlife scooped or vacuumed from the ocean floor, he said.

The vents, some of the hottest ever discovered, are also interesting from a geological perspective. Here, high temperatures and pressure cause venting fluid to become supercritical, meaning it behaves like a gas and a liquid. These fluids are very reactive, dissolving minerals deep in the Earth's crust and transporting them to the seafloor, according to the expedition's website.

The Beebe field also contains a series of older mounds from former vents, which could help researchers understand how these important formations are created.

One researcher placed half of a pig carcass within the Cayman Trough near the hydrothermal vents to see what scavengers it might attract, Thaler said.

Reach Douglas Main at dmain@techmedianetwork.com. Follow him on Twitter @Douglas_Main. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

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Anja Scheffers. Boka Bartol

A coastal lagoon on the Caribbean island of Bonaire.

By Charles Q. Choi
Our Amazing Planet

An ancient tsunami caused dramatic long-term ecological changes in the Caribbean more than 3,000 years ago, new research suggests.

Scientists investigated sediments from a coastal lagoon on the Caribbean island of Bonaire about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of the Venezuelan coast. The Caribbean is highly vulnerable to coastal hazards such as hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides and floods.

Bonaire has not experienced a tsunami during the past 500 years of its recorded history. However, analysis of the size of sediment grains found on the island, the organic matter present in the sediment (such as animal remains and carbonate minerals), as well as other factors suggest that a devastating wave struck the island about 3,000 to 3,300 years ago.

"We assume that the height of the ancient tsunami along the coast was at least 8 to 9 meters (26 to 30 feet) as inferred from the size of transported boulders," said researcher Max Engel, a coastal geomorphologist at the University of Cologne in Germany. [ 7 Ways the Earth Changes in the Blink of an Eye ]

Altered ecosystem
The researchers estimate the tsunami reached at least 820 feet (250 m) onshore. "Lagoons and valleys of the island might be inundated up to a kilometer (0.6 miles) or more, and the flat and low-lying southern tip of the island might have been entirely inundated," Engel told OurAmazingPlanet.

This catastrophe apparently altered the coastal ecosystem and sedimentation patterns in the area. In the wave's aftermath, a barrier of coral rubble separated a former mangrove-fringed bay from the open sea, transforming it into a highly salty lagoon that has persisted up to now.

"Large tsunamis may occur on the ABC islands — Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao — even though tsunamis have never been observed in historical times," Engel said.

Uncertain source
It remains uncertain where this tsunami might have come from. "The most likely source would be a local to regional tsunami triggered by an earthquake along the southern boundary of the Caribbean tectonic plate — that is, the coast of Venezuela," Engel said. For instance, historical records suggest a devastating tsunami in 1530 was triggered by an earthquake near Cumaná, Venezuela.

In addition, a strong earthquake at the northeastern boundary of the Caribbean cannot be excluded as the tsunami's cause either. For instance, the 1867 temblor in the Anegada Passage in the U.S. Virgin Islands triggered a tsunami that traveled across the Caribbean. "Further possible trigger mechanisms include submarine volcanic activity in the southern Antilles island arc, though these tsunamis tend to be local," Engel said.

The wave may even have been a "teletsunami," an oceanwide tsunami originating on the other side of the Atlantic.

"For instance, computer models indicate that the collapse of a flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands into the sea may induce a tsunami that still reaches a height of several meters after crossing the Atlantic Ocean and approaching the Caribbean islands and the southern coasts of North America," Engel said.

The investigators said further studies should look for evidence of tsunamis across the entire Caribbean to reconstruct reliable patterns of tsunami magnitude, frequency and location, as well as their environmental impact. In addition, researchers should develop computer models simulating earthquake-triggered tsunamis capable of creating the pattern of coastal flooding on Bonaire that matches the geological evidence to identify a possible trigger mechanism posing a threat in the future.

"We provided evidence for a potential hazard for which there is no real awareness on Bonaire," Engel said. "I hope this work contributes to an increase in public awareness on a local and regional level."

Engel and his colleagues detailed their findings in the January issue of the journal Naturwissenschaften.

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