Tuesday, 31 October 2023
Monday, 16 October 2023
Salvage Workers Begin Pumping Fuel from Italian Shipwreck
The operation to extract 2,400 tonnes of fuel from 15 tanks is expected to take 28 days, weather permitting. It may then take seven to 10 months to refloat the vessel.
Salvage workers Sunday began pumping fuel from the shipwrecked Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia, a day ahead of schedule, officials said.
Operations began at around 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on the wreck off the Tuscan island of Giglio to remove fuel from seven of the massive ship's tanks, with conditions calm.
VIDEO ANALYSIS: Concordia Captain: 'OK, Whatever' as Ship Teeters
The Costa Concordia ran aground on January 13 with a total of 4,229 people on board, an accident that cost the lives of 32 people. The bodies of 15 of those lost have still to be recovered.
Civil protection officials had said earlier they would start the pumping operations on Monday, after severe cold weather required them to revise their schedule, but final preparations were completed over the weekend.
Dutch company Smit, working with the Italian firm Neri, is handling the operation, which will involve extracting 2,400 tonnes of fuel still inside the vessel to avoid what officials say would be an environmental disaster if it leaked into the sea.
NEWS: Concordia Wreck at Risk of Collapse, Spilling
They plan to complete the operation in 28 days, working around the clock to empty a total of 15 tanks, so long as weather conditions permit, the civil protection authority said.
Only once that operation is completed can work begin to refloat the vessel, an operation that experts say will take at least seven months and possibly as many as 10.
The Costa Concordia ran aground just a few dozen meters (yards) from the port of the island of Giglio, which lies off Italy's Tuscan coast and from where ferries run to the mainland.
Pierluigi Foschi, the chief executive of Costa Crociere, owners of the cruise liner, visited the tiny island of Giglio, which has 800 inhabitants, on Thursday.
He told local people they would have a concrete plan by the middle of March on getting the vessel out of their waters and promised to everything he could to minimize the impact on the local tourist industry.
PHOTOS: The Concordia: Recounting a Disaster
Thursday, 9 February 2023
Elephant Seals Swimming Deeper as Waters Warm
Elephant seals are in it deep due to climate change ... deep in the ocean, that is. Elephant seals from Marion Island in the southwest Indian Ocean are swimming farther beneath the surface as their prey also moves into cooler, deeper waters.
"This prey is moving down to greater depths, presumably due to the increasing water temperatures, and this is forcing the seals to follow them," explained Horst Bornemann from the Alfred Wegener Institute, in a press release.
Bornemann and colleagues from the Mammal Research Institute fit more than 30 southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) with satellite transmitters. The transmitters are glued like beanies to the seals' heads. They measure dive depth, water temperature, and salinity on every dive, then beam that information to the marine biologists via satellite.
The results show that the seals dive deeper in warmer water.
"We therefore assume that the animals will find less prey in warmer water masses," explained Joachim Plötz, another biologist from the Alfred Wegener Institute involved in the study, in a press release.
Diving deeper means the seals have less time to feed, since they can only hold their breath for so long.
BLOG: Elephant Seals Moved Fast With Climate Change
The next step of the study will be to prove that the seals are indeed feeding at greater depths. A follow-up study will fit the seals with a sensor that will record when they open their mouths.
The biologists noted that the Marion Island seals already live near the northern end of southern elephant seal territory. Further warming could put their survival on the island in jeopardy, though the massive marine mammals are listed as of Least Concern to the IUCN.
BLOG: Feminist Elephant Seals Take to the Water
Male elephant seals are up to six times larger than females and rule over large harems of females. But some females have found a way to strike a blow for aquatic feminists by mating out at sea, where the sexes are on more equal terms, reported Discovery News.
IMAGES:
Southern Elephant Seal on Macquarie Island. (Credit: Mbz1, Wikimedia Commons).
An elephant seal with a sensor on its head. (Credit: Joachim Plötz, Alfred Wegener Institute).
After placing the sensor on the animal's head, the biologists measure its body size. (Credit: Joachim Plötz, Alfred Wegener Institute).
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