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OUR OCEANS

                              From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82
July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572
Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130
Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82
Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85
Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118
Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465
Jan     14       4142     15512        1151        189      712              
Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398
Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194
April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37
May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 
June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95
 July   7          251      8440        1595        817      411
Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532     423 
Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235
          8        1700      9836          250        339     253
        14        1934      9001          709        281      300
        22       2228      9326          839        279      124
        29        2190      8859         643        309      108
Oct    5        1811       7495          686        285     103
          6        2102       8255         543        315       59
        12        1819       7544         201        249        37 
        19        2005      7528         401        160        80 
        26        1451       7535         409        584       53
        27       1594       8671         433        734        62 
Nov   3        1436       7830        186        458        23
        10        1493      8366         264        362        48
        17        1416       8440         374        470         11
        24        1594      8270         176        396        22
        25         306      7154          281        488       114
Dec    1        1633      8475         266        477        28 
          8        1324       7894         231        159        36
          9         1088     7949         206        624       22

Summary:
  • USA looking better, but still with 110,894 new cases yesterday.
  • The pandemic epicenter indeed is in Europe:
    • #2  Germany  65,175
    • #3  France  56,854
    • #4  UK  50,863
    • The U.S. has a population of 334 million, while those three countries add up to 218 million.
  • South Africa had only 22 new deaths yesterday, but had 22,388 new cases.
  • On a new cases/million basis:  U.S. = 332, while South Africa = 373.
  • However those three European countries are at 793 new cases/million.
  • Neighbor to South Africa, Botswana (population 2.4 million), which might have had the first Omicron case, only had 538 new cases yesterday with one new death.
  • Hawaii, with a population of 1.4 million, had 143 new cases (which was the lowest for any state yesterday) with 1 new death.
  • Maybe Omicron could go the way of Beta.

President Joe Biden:  Forget vaccine mandates.  This is what the world should be doing.  

  • In Singapore, those who are unvaccinated by choice will start paying for their own COVID-19 treatment this week.  The average cost is $18,000.  
  • Those who still need to complete the two-shot cycle have until the end of the year.  
  • Of course, those with medical exemptions (note, nothing about religion) or children under 12 are off course not covered in this edict.  
  • 85% of the population are fully vaccinated and 18% have been boosted.  
  • And this is interesting:  over the past seven days, there were ten times more unvaccinated over vaccinated patients in hospitals.

My topic of the day relates to our TEDx event tomorrow about the ocean.  Remember, go to     

https://vimeo.com/event/1626291/26ac0fde98

Where did all that water on Earth come from?  There is no scientific consensus.  One theory from Scientific American, more particularly Tobias Owen (he passed away 4 years ago) of the University of Hawaii, and this information is 20 years old:

  • 4.6 billion years ago Earth was formed through the accumulation of planetisimals, mostly dust/rock in orbit.
  • Water came from the following:
    • These panetesimals.
    • Water-rich meteorites.
    • Comets.
But where did those planetesimals, meteorites and comets get their water?

Water is abundant in space and is made up of hydrogen created in the Big Bang and oxygen released from dying stars.

While early analysis suggested that those planetesimals that formed our planet could not have been the source because the Sun would have boiled away any water, Italian cosmochemist Laurette Piani argues that these early rocks that made Earth actually have chondrites  (from which came hydrogen), when combined with oxygen (from mantle rock), could have formed 3 times the water found in our oceans.  In any case water also came from space materials, for they also brought carbon and amino acids.

The following is a closely related theory:

There are three hypotheses for how the inner solar system received water: 1) water molecules stuck to dust grains inside the snow line (inset), 2) meteoritic material was flung into the inner solar system by the effect of gravity from protoJupiter, and 3) comets brought water to the inner solar system after the planets were formed.

In 2000 the Antarctic Ocean was renamed the Southern ocean.

The second question is why is the ocean salty?

  • Around 71% of our planet's surface is water.  
  • 2% of all water is ice.
  • 97% of water is saline.
  • Seawater is 3.5% salt, which is sodium chloride. 
    • There are, of course, other minerals.
    • The Dead sea has a salinity of 34.2%.  I swam in it and floated.  However, the surface has receded by 43% since 1930.
  • Rain over land dissolved minerals and rivers delivered them into the sea, four billion tons/year.
  • However, it is not that simple.  Minerals are also added by volcanic eruptions and hydrothermal vents.  Then marine life concentrates certain minerals into shells, etc.  Thus, we have what we find today in the ocean.
  • A good question is why aren't lakes similarly salty?  Lakes are mostly freshwater because, while fed by rivers, also are drained by the same rivers, and therefore don't accumulate minerals.
  • If all the salt in the ocean is removed and spread evenly over the planet's surface, it would form a layer more than 500 feet thick, about the height of a 40-story building.
  • Interestingly enough, a cubic mile (a little more than a billion gallons) of seawater can also contain 25 pounds of gold and 45 pounds of silver.

Finally, about our oceans:

  • There is only one ocean.
  • However, five regions have names:  Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Southern.
    • Most of our planet is dark, for the average depth is 12,100 feet, and light can only penetrated down 330 feet.
    • The loudest ocean sound was a 1997 icequake given a name, The Bloop.  The sound was picked up by sensors 3000 miles away.
  • The Zhemchug Canyon located in the Bering Sea has a vertical relief of 8520 feet, 2500 feet deeper than the Grand Canyon.
  • You can't see the largest waves, which are internal and can be 650 feet tall.
  • While the deeper portions of our oceans are close to freezing at 35.6 F, hydrothermal vents can go up to 750 F.
  • 94% of all life on Earth is in the ocean.
  • There is enough gold in the ocean to give each of us nine pounds, which worth almost $200,000.
  • The longest underwater mountain range is 10 times longer than the Andes.
  • The Pacific Ocean is wider than the moon.
  • One iceberg could supply a million people with drinking water for five years.  The United Arab Emirates, where it only rains 4 inches/year, is considering this option.
  • The pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (35,802 feet) is like there are 50 jumbo jets on you.  More people have been to the moon than the Mariana Trench.
  • Because of our 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone, more than half of the U.S. exists underwater.  Hawaii's ocean reserve is twice the size of Texas.
  • Sea ice is drinkable.
  • 90% of all the volcanic activity is in the ocean.
  • Tsunamis move at 500 miles per hour.  This is the premise I use in a book I'm writing--Five Hours to Los Angeles--where I leave on a plane from Hawaii to Los Angeles, after Hilo drops into the ocean.
  • The largest living structure is the Great Barrier Reed, 133,000 square miles.
  • There are 3 million shipwrecks in the ocean.
  • If all the ice melted, the sea level would rise 262 feet.
I can go on and on, but you can read the rest.

- 

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