Friar Bellows

Pf! Mere mice.

It's actually the return of ye Olde Ones.

Sowthistle

What if it was some sort noise made by vast colonies of microscropic organisms. Of course, I'm a lit person too and am trying to avoid all sorts of faulty analogies, but I keep thinking of the vast fungus that is supposed the largest living organism on Earth. Maybe it's something like that.

Of course, we had best alert Sephiroth if possible -- mayhaps Gaia is awakening!

ST

Marduk

"It's actually the return of ye Olde Ones."


Tiamat stirs!

CanoeMan

This reminds me: One of the coolest species I have ever heard of is a tiny little shrimp-thingy that lives deep in the sea. Nothing remarkable about them, really, just your usual kind of shrimp.

Except that they can produce temperatures of a couple of thousands of degrees celcius in a small "plasma bolt" for an extremly short period of time.

Apperantly they do this to navigate in the darkness, either using the sudden light to see or using the sound that comes from the water turning to steam and then popping back into water again.

Now, I don't have any links to corroborate this, and the story sounds kind of unbelivable (Deep Sea Shrimp Plasma Throwers?) but you have to admit that if true, it has to be on the Top Ten List of Weird Shit.

Gurdur

Hi buddhagrrl,
and BTW, welcome to this board.

First off: the bloop is most likely not from squids or whales, since after reading the article, it is very clear that the analysists are very skilled, and have specifically ruled out those two candidates.

Another alternative is the escape of gas from the sea floor sediment, or from vents; however, the researchers say that this is most unlikely, given the acoustic "signature" of the bloop.

As to whether there's undiscovered deep-sea life --- 90 % certain there is (new species have been discovered in the last few years), however such newly discovered species are very unlikely to be large animals, otherwise most likely we would have already discovered carcasses after storms and whatnot.

So it's anyone's guess what the bloop actually is, but the resaerchers have already ruled out what it is not.

Frustrating, I know, but I hope this is of some help.

BTW, one of the newly discovered species I mentioned is a small shark whose modus operendi is to take 6"-diameter bites out of whales and whatnot, then swin away; until this shark was discovered, it was thought that all circular scars on whales came from the suckers of giant squids - now we know an additional cause.

buddhagrrl

Wow, now THAT's the kind of response I was looking for! Thank you!!!

Corwin

Actually no, nobody has specifically ruled out squid. One marine biologist has stated that he doubts it's a squid, based on the fact that squids don't have air bladders. (The water jet that's common to most squids/octipi, he doesn't mention.)

Of course it doesn't have to be a squid, that just seems fairly likely.