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#66718 04/24/02 07:55 PM
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Well, color me naive, I've never seen a map with the Southern Ocean labelled. Someone's hiding things from us.

Seems like it would be just as big, or bigger than the Arctic Ocean, so why wouldn't it be a major one? Are there any other "oceans" that have been hiding from me? And also, are the noticable boundaries between the oceans, so that you can actually tell in a boat, that you've gone from one to another?


Most maps are dismal at showing oceanographic features. I'm quite excited that my new atlas shows some ocean depths. (Ocean atlases are neat - the land is at the edge, and you mostly see water - instead of the other way around!) My favourite map, above my desk at the university, shows the oceanic regions adjacent to Canada, with all sorts of detail. And of course labels - the Labrador Sea, Baffin Bay, Hudson and James Bay, the Finnish Cap, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

In my intro. to phys. ocean. notes (which you guys have forced me to go back to at times! ) we name three major oceans, with Arctic and Antarctic as add-ons. In terms of volume, the rough numbers are Atlantic - 25%, Indian - 25%, Pacific - 50%. The small bit which is the two polar oceans just doesn't amount to much in terms of volume (this is most easily appreciated on a globe where you can admire just how stupendously BIG the Pacific is). (Remember, too, that in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean is a big glob of land - though the same can't be said for the Arctic!)

And you probably could tell in a boat when you've switched oceans, if you had some oceanographic instruments! The changes in temperature and salinity can be relatively "sharp" in a global sense but that may still look pretty gradual to someone on a boat. We are pretty small, after all.

And nope, no other hidden oceans. Well, you've always known about the Southern Ocean - you've seen it on maps - you just never gave that region a name!

You want to know another neat thing? Strong currents, combined with the turning earth, cause the water level on one side of the current to be higher than on the other side (depends on direction and current speed). It's a neat problem in intro oceanography. We calculated the difference in water level across a current through the Strait of Florida (can't recall the name right now), it's something like 80 cm (about a yard). Wow!


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> "...apparently Japanese fishing captains are not renowned for their ability to listen to sweet reason."

The Oz Navy are regularly called to defend our international waters against fish poachers - many of whom aren't from Japan.

Seizing ships on the high seas is a good business to be in. A couple of years ago the jack tars intercepted and impounded two Norwegian built fishing boats that were helping themselves to our (increasingly rare) Patagonian Tooth Fish. The boats were escorted to Fremantle and forfeited to the Crown (ie the country). The pair of them were worth a total of around $25 million - one was quite new.

Bean mentioned the possibility that our ships may be restricted in how far south they travel for fear of cracking. I hadn't heard of this and, considering the regular jaunts a LONG way south the navy makes to grab fishing boats and round the world yacht race sailors, I'm unsure of its validity. I think there'd definitely be some sort of insurance clause for non-navy vessels what with the danger of icebergs etc.

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defend our international waters

Whose international waters?


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Dear Faldage,

Welcome to the biggest point of contention in Newfoundland. Here, Canada's sovereignty extends to the so-called "200-mile limit". Unfortunately, that does not include the "nose and tail" of the Grand Banks (you need a map for that one). The Grand Banks is where all the fish live (relatively shallow water - 100m to 200m deep - rich in life). Therefore, foreign fleets come in and trawl beyond our 200-mile limit, and catch all the fish. There is a moratorium on cod fishing on the Grand Banks, because of the collapse of the cod stocks, but it doesn't count past the 200-mile limit. So basically cod stocks (and Newfoundland's economy) will never recover, thanks to the Europeans fishing the hell out of them beyond the 200-mile limit. Unless we extend our sovereignty to include that region. Which looks doubtful. Add to that the furore created by environmental nuts about the seal hunt, and you have a cod stock that will never recover. Real research (not just fishermens' theories based on anecdotal evdience) seems to have shown that there are too many seals to allow the cod stocks to recover. (And no, no one clubs baby seals to death. Blame that misconception on good marketing by the environmental nuts.)

Recently the government has decided to ban ships from countries accused of overfishing (or fishing protected stocks) from docking at any port in Canada. So far they've banned a couple of countries (not sure which ones). I doubt it will do any good.

I used to be skeptical of the claims that Newfoundland was being screwed around by the rest of Canada, but now I'm not so sure. For example, the collapse of the BC logging industry due to the tariff imposed by the US on softwood was the cause for much concern here. However, the EU has a 20% tariff on Canadian (mostly Newfoundland) shrimp and no one in Ottawa much cares. The foreign overfishing thing is just more of the same.

Edit: point of this? I think I see what stales is getting at.

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Faldage - I take your point on my inelegant mixing of words - "our" and "international" do serve to cancel each other out.

I will however clutch at the line thrown by Bean as well. The little I know about international vs territorial water treaties tells me that the whole thing is a hodge podge. As mentioned in the past, Australia lays claim to Heard Island in the Antarctic and Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. We've also put our name on a fair chunk of the Antarctic (you know Jazzo - the big white island to the south of the Southern Ocean) Ownership of these places lets us lay claim to vast additional areas of ocean - perhaps like Hawaii does for the US. I seem to recall that some countries refuse to acknowledge these waters as ours and hence are prepared to fish them.

I could be way off line here so apologies in advance - just in case.

Perhaps if I'd used "territorial waters" in the preceding post instead of "international waters"?

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It is impossible to live more than 90 miles from the sea in the UK.

I can beat you there, Jo. There is no point on this sceptered isle more than 60 miles from the ocean. Of course, the best parts are located in the Wesht.


#66725 05/02/02 12:24 AM
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So did we get an answer in the end?

And does Rubrick get the prize for living in the smallest island? Anyone from Singapore? Jersey? Bermuda? Shetland?


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And does Rubrick get the prize for living in the smallest island?

Well, surely Manhattan Island and Long Island are smaller.


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