Category Archives: High Seas

Earths oceans are home to an incredible number of interesting creatures, and sometimes certain species show up where youd least expect them. Thats exactly what happened to a fisherman off the coast of Norway during a routine fishing trip that yielded a beast rarely seen near the surface.

Oscar Lundahl, a 19-year-old fishing guide for Nordic Sea Angling, was hoping to catch some blue halibut in deep water off the coast. Instead, Lundahl snagged a ratfish, and if you didnt know better, you might think it was something from another dimension.

Lundahl was fishing at a depth of over 2,500 feet at the time, and in an interview with The Sun he explained that it took him a full half-hour to reel the fish to the surface. Once he finally got a look at it, he was shocked. With two massive, bulging eyes and a bizarre, eel-like tail, it was like nothing hed seen during his young career on the high seas.

It was pretty amazing. I have never seen anything like it before, Lundahl told The Sun. It just looked weird, a bit dinosaur-like. I didnt know what it was but my colleague did.

Unfortunately, the fish didnt survive the ordeal. Deep-sea creatures that end up snagged on fishing nets or, in the case, a hook, rarely live to tell the tale. Theres such intense pressure in their native habitats that, when theyre yanked to the surface, their bodies simply cant handle the strain.

This unlucky ratfish didnt go waste, however, as Lundahl says he actually filleted and fried the fish, calling it really tasty, according to The Sun.

Image Source: Oscar Lundahl

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Fisherman snags alien fish that looks like something straight out of a horror movie - BGR

Key point: The Allies responded in kind.

The forces of Nazi Germany in World War II were some of the most formidable fielded in any war. Backed by German science, engineering and modern mass-production techniques, it was a new type of highly mechanized warfare. Faster paced and deadlier than the armed forces that fought in the Great War just twenty years before, it overwhelmed slower-moving enemies and helped Germany subjugate an entire continent. Here are five examples of German war technology that very nearly ended Western civilization as we know it.

ThePanzerkampfwagenVI (Tiger Tank)

The tanks modern reputation as a fast, hard-hitting, deadly war chariot is largely due to the German Armys use of the tank in the early years of World War II. Although first invented by the British in World War I, the Wehrmacht and SS took the tank to its logical conclusion, in doing so swinging the pendulum of war from defense as the dominant form of warfare back to the offense.

Although the bulk of German tank forces was composed of smaller tanks such as thePanzerkampfwagenIII and IV, thePanzerkampfwagenVIor Tiger tankwas designed to be the decisive factor on the armored battlefield. At fifty-four tons, it was considerably larger than contemporary tanks, and together with its thick armor and eighty-eight-millimeter main gun, made the Tiger a so-called heavy tank. Introduced in 1942, the TigersKwK36 gun could gut any mass-produced Allied tank built during the war, and the tanks thick armored hide could shrug off most Allied antitank rounds.

Tigers were organized into heavy tank battalions and deployed by German Army commanders where they were needed the most. As a result, unlike other German tanks which prioritized protection and mobility over firepower in a general offensive, the Tiger emphasized firepower and protection over mobility, as it typically had specific objectives in mind.

MesserschmittBf 109 fighter

TheMesserschmittBf 109 was hands down the most lethal fighter of the Second World War. Designed by legendary aircraft designer WillyMesserschmittin themid-1930s, it replaced a grab bag of forgettable interwar German fighters with a fresh design that included a monocoque airframe, retractable landing gear and a closed cockpit.

EarlyBf109Amodels served in the Spanish Civil War. By the late thirties, German rearmament was in full swing and theMe109became the main fighter of the fledgling Luftwaffe. Fast and maneuverable, it was also hard hitting, featuring two .51-caliber heavy machine guns and one twenty-millimeter cannon.

TheBf109Aand the Luftwaffe served all over Europe, North Africa and European Russia, dominating all other air forces until 1943 with the exception of the Royal Air Force. TheBf109and its wartime variants had the most serial aces of the war, including pilots such as AdolphGalland, Werner Molders and JohannesSteinhoff. Overall, 33,984Bf109sof all kinds were built by German and Czech factories. Ironically, a variant of the Bf-109, the CzechAvia199, served with an embryonic Israeli Air Force in the late1940s.

MG-42 Machine Gun

The crew-served machine gun was a major contributor to the high death rate of World War I, and the interwar German Army, though small, ensured it had highly effective machine guns to help it punch above its weight. The MG-34 machine gun, adopted in 1934, was lightweight, had an extremely high rate of fire of up to 1,200 rounds per minute, and was capable of quick barrel changes on the battlefielda must for an infantry-support machine gun.

Unfortunately, the MG-34 was built made more like a watch than a battlefield weapon, and as a result manufacturerRheinmetallcould not keep up with demand. The MG-42, introduced in 1942, was an attempt to simplify the design into something that could be more easily mass-produced, and ultimately four hundred thousand were produced. The MG-42s high rate of fire proved highly beneficial in defensive battles, particularlystrongpointsbacked up by mobile reserves on the Eastern Front.

German small arms doctrine held that theMG42not the infantry weaponwas the foundation of infantry firepower. The infantry, armed with slower-firingKarabiner98kbolt-action rifles, supported the machine gun. By contrast, the U.S. Army placed less emphasis on machine guns, fielding fewer of them than a comparable German unit, while at the same time increasing overall firepower with the semiautomaticM1Garandand theM1918Browning Automatic Rifle.

The U-Boat

The German Navy (Kriegsmarine) in World War II was not the dominant arm of the German military. There would be no repeat of the German High Seas Fleet. As a result, it had to focus its limited resources on what was most effective its traditional maritime foe, the Royal Navy. While the response to the French Navy was the German Army, fighting the United Kingdom required a naval response.

But without capital ships, how would Germany take the fight to the Atlantic? The answer was theUnterseeboot, or U-boat submarine. U-Boats had been highly successful in World War I, and the Kriegsmarine heavily reinvested in them in World War II. This again proved successful, with U-boats sinking 2,779 Allied ships totaling 14.1 million tons between 1939 and 1945. The most successful U-boat,U-48, sank fifty-one ships. That translated to 306,874 tons of Allied shippingthe equivalent of three modern Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

Not only did the U-boat campaign force the Allies to slow the flow of troops and war materials across the Atlantic and organize shipping into convoys for protection, it also affected the British civilian population, which suffered chronic shortages of foodstuffs and other goods. Initially powerful, U-boats were eventually nullified by Allied countermeasures and ultimately failed to sever lines of communication between North America and western Europe. Germanys submarine force lost heavily765 U-boats were lost during the course of the Second World War.

Panzerfaust

Germanys use of masses of tanks on the modern battlefield opened Pandoras box. Within a few years Allied forces would be returning the favor and it was suddenly the German Army that was facing large numbers of British, American and Soviet tanks. As the quality of German forces declined and the number of Allied forces went up, the Wehrmacht had a need for a cheap, inexpensive way to saturate the battlefield with tank-killing firepower. The result: the Panzerfaust.

The Panzerfaust was incredibly simple for an effective antitank weapon. A single-shot, recoilless weapon, it featured a large, egg-shaped warhead attached to a disposable metal tube. The primitive trigger ignited the black powder propellant, sending the warhead to an effective range of thirty yards. The shaped charge warhead had an astonishing penetration capability of up to 7.9 inches, making it capable of destroying any Allied tank.

The Panzerfaust made anyoneeven old men and children dragooned into the German Army late in the wara potential tank killer. The introduction of this new short-range, last-ditch weapon made Allied tank crews more cautious around German infantry that did not appear to have strong antitank defenses, such as towed guns. During the Battle for Berlin, some Soviet tankers evenwelded bed springs to their tanks, in hopes that prematurely detonating the shaped charge warhead would save their tanka tactic the U.S. Army used decades later with so-called slat armor on Stryker armored vehicles.

Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in theDiplomat,Foreign Policy,War is Boringand theDaily Beast. In 2009, he cofounded the defense and security blogJapan Security Watch. You can follow him on Twitter:@KyleMizokami. This first appeared several years ago and is being republished due to reader interest.

Image: Wikipedia.

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Meet the Weapons That Made Hitler's Nazi Germany A Force To Be Feared - The National Interest Online

All's fair in Sea of Thieves. Sinking other ships and taking their treasure. Betraying your alliance so you can take all of the loot instead of just half. Four-man galleons ganging up on solo sloops. We're pirates, after all, and pirates aren't to be trusted.

But I have become the worst kind of Sea of Thieves pirate. I'm an outpost ambusher. And while I feel some degree of shame over this, it's not nearly enough shame to change my ways.

The outpost ambusher doesn't fight pirates on the high seas or go sword-to-musket with them on an uninhabited island. He waits at an outpost for another ship to arrive, a ship he knows is carrying treasure. He sinks his own ship ahead of time so the arriving pirates won't know he's there. He plants explosive barrels and detonates them from a safe distance, killing the other pirates just as they're about to cash in their loot. And then he rushes in to grab the treasure and quickly sell it himself.

That treasure was fought for and earned (or at least legitimately stolen) and was probably carried dozens of nautical miles to get there. The outpost ambusher carries it the last few feet and takes 100% of the profit.

That's what I've become in Sea of Thieves. An ambusher. A rat. I don't do it often, and I don't join a session with the express intent of ambushing other pirates at outposts. But when the opportunity for an outpost ambush presents itself, I don't hesitate for a second, and I've done it enough times that I can't pretend it's an anomaly. I will do it again.

The first time I ambushed pirates at an outpost in Sea of Thieves, months ago, it wasn't really my plan. I'd been playing solo, sailing around in my little sloop, pulling treasure out of randomly spawning shipwrecks. Then I'd head to seaposts and outposts to sell what I'd found, and along the way I'd usually fight a kraken or a megalodon and gather a bit more loot from them. It's an enjoyable solo loop, perfect for an hour or two of low-stakes play.

I was done playing for the night, so I headed toward the nearest outpost to sell the remaining loot I had. It was Plunder Outpost, which is right next to Lost Gold Fort, a skeleton stronghold. As I got close to Plunder Outpost, I noticed a player galleon anchored near the fort, which meant a crew was there battling waves of skeletons for a massive pile of loot. As I arrived at Plunder, the big skull cloud over the fort vanished, which meant the galleon crew had won.

It occurred to me that they'd probably head straight to Plunder Outpost, where I was, to sell everything. It would probably only take them a few minutes to load their ship and sail over. I realized I could be there waiting for them and their treasure-filled ship. Plus, I had some explosive barrels with mewhen I play solo I always pick up a few in case I get chased by other players.

I figured they would probably bring the most valuable chest to the merchant's tent first, so I placed an explosive barrel inside the tent. I scuttled my ship on the far side of the island so my mast wouldn't give me away. Then I hopped onto a roof of one of the vendors where I had a clear shot at the barrel I'd placed. I used the sleeping emote to lie down, and watched as they sailed over and docked.

It all worked perfectly except for the part where I completely failed. I'd guessed right: the first pirate off the galleon headed to merchant's tent carrying the expensive stronghold chest. I fired a sniper round and detonated the barrel, which killed him instantly, but I'd let him get too close to the tent. He'd managed to sell the crate a moment before he died. When I scurried over, there was nothing there but his dissipating ghost.

The rest of the treasure was in a rowboat that had been lowered to the water, but it was so crammed with loot I couldn't grab the stuff I really wanted. I only got a few pieces of low-value treasure out before the rest of the crew killed me.

Less than a week later, I wound up in almost the exact same situation again. I was heading toward Plunder Outpost, ready to call it a night, and I saw yet another galleon over at Lost Gold Fort. I had two explosive barrels this time, so I thought I'd try my ambush again.

This time, there was a bit of a twist. Shortly after the skull cloud vanished, I saw a sloop headed toward the fort. I could make out some distant cannonfire and through my spyglass I saw the masts of the galleon fall over. Several minutes later, I saw the sloop making its way toward the outpost where I'd scuttled my ship and was waiting. The sloop crew had sunk the galleon and taken all that treasure! And now I was going to try to take it from them, even though they'd put in the hard work of killing the pirates who'd put in the hard work to take down the fort. I'd be putting in no work at all because I'm a filthy rat.

This time my sniper shot was well-timed: I took out the pirate before he could sell the stronghold chest. I grabbed it, sold it, then took my second explosive barrel onto the sloop and nuked it. The pirate (who was apparently alone) respawned to find his ship already sinking, and we fought toe-to-toe on the beach. I managed to kill him and with his sloop destroyed he couldn't respawn. The pile of treasure he'd defeated the galleon crew for was floating in the water, all mine. It's the rattiest thing I've ever done, stealing from a legitimate thief.

I didn't try it again for a long, long while after that. Like I said, I'm a rat but an impatient one. I'm not going to spend my entire night lying on the roof at an outpost hoping someone sails over: I only ambush when the opportunity is already developing. Case in point, the other night.

I'd spent about 15 minutes crossing the sea in my sloop headed toward a reaper's chest, which appear in special, haunted shipwrecks you can see from anywhere on the map. Just as I was arriving I saw another sloop had beat me to it. A real pirate would chase them down and put some cannonballs in their hull, and maybe even sink them before they got the chest onboard.

But I'm no real pirate, so instead I headed to Sanctuary Outpost, the closest port. You sell the reaper's chests in the pub, so I scuttled my ship, dragged my barrel into the pub, placed it by the front door, and waited. Sure enough, a few minutes later I saw the sloop pulling up to the dock. When the pirate ran into the pub, I blew up the barrel and collected the chest myself.

I just wanted the chestI had spent all that time sailing toward it and so I felt vaguely (and wrongly) entitledbut after killing the second pirate I boarded their ship and stole a mermaid gem, too.

What can I say? I hate players like me. I'm a rat. I'm the worst kind of pirate. I'm an outpost ambusher. I'm not playing Sea of Thieves, I'm playing Sea of Thieves of Thieves.

So, if you've got a ship full of treasure and you're headed for an outpost, don't feel safe just because you don't see a sloop waiting there. Check the tents and pubs for barrels before you go rushing in with loot. And if you find me hiding nearby with a sniper rifle, kill me quickly and mercilessly. It's what I deserve and it's the only way I'll stop.

Excerpt from:

I've become the worst kind of Sea of Thieves pirate: the outpost ambusher - PC Gamer

Shailene Woodley and UF researchers saw sperm whales, a single flip-flop and thousands of microplastics in the middle of the ocean.

Nerine Constant and Alexandra Gulick, 29-year-old UF doctoral students who study sea turtles, participated in a sea research expedition as part of the Greenpeace Protect the Oceans campaign with Woodley, an activist and Divergent actress. The goal of the expedition is to study how climate change affects the ecosystem.

The campaign pushes for a Global Ocean Treaty to protect open oceans that are offshore from any countrys national waters because they lack protection and oversight, Gulick said.

The yearlong expedition, which began in the Arctic and ended in Antarctica, started in April. The UF duo, who joined the expedition from July 29 to Aug. 12, researched free-floating algae that congregates into thick mats in the Sargasso Sea.

Woodley joined the expedition, which researched key locations and ecosystems in the high seas. She wrote an article for Time magazine detailing her experience. The expeditioners goals are to highlight threats to the ocean.

The Sargasso Sea has a diverse ecosystem and could potentially be a part of the ocean where discarded waste collects, Woodley wrote.

Staring at the vast blanket of blue ahead of us, the baking sun tanning our legs, the fresh, clean air filling our lungs, its difficult to imagine this paradise being declared a climate emergency, Woodley wrote.

The UF students research is focused on if algae acts like incubators for baby loggerhead sea turtles.The UF students research is focused on if algae acts like incubators for baby loggerhead sea turtles. The warmth from solar radiation causes increasing temperatures in algal areas,which may help growth rates.

Turtles get caught in the currents that surround the Sargasso Sea, and they end up in the algae mats, Constant said.

The algae are a developmental habitat for young turtles as they stay in the open waters for five to 10 years, Gulick said.

Expeditioners saw plastic in the open water more than 200 miles from shore.

Gulick said everyone on the trip reflected on their use of plastic. One of the scientists on the expedition grabbed a patch of seaweed and shook out thousands of microplastics.

Even though we were aware that there was a plastic issue in the ocean, thats a huge problem, she said. Theres just something about it once you go out and see it.

Constant and Gulick said Woodley helps raise awareness about issues in unregulated waters.

She didnt just show up to the expedition for the photo ops. Even now that the expedition is over, shes really trying to maintain the presence in the press and in the public eye to really raise awareness, Gulick said.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the impact of solar radiation on sea turtles, which may help their growth rates. The Alligator previously reported different.

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Shailene Woodley joins UF researchers on Greenpeace sea expedition - The Independent Florida Alligator

The ocean is unconquered by the rule of lawa place where magic and superstition hold as much sway as science and technology. It tests human natures basest form, as only the barest traces of the order we follow on land govern international waters. It boasts some framework, in theory, some allegiance to best practices and human rights. But as Ian Urbina makes clear, the outlaw ocean dissolves such delusions in its endless depths.

Urbina spent years at sea, chronicling the lives of those upon it for The New York Times. The stories contained in his new book, The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, pertain to ecology, climate change and the economythe great engines now running the world. Urbinas true focus, however, is on the people driven by those engines.

There are few heroes in Urbinas anomic world. Coast guards and navies may try to impose their will, but the amorphous nature of the seaand our abandonment of even attempted control past a certain distance from landensures that international waters are a world unto themselves. Out there exists a maritime Mad Max, as ships barely seaworthy travel thousands of miles from their home portsand from civilization itself.

In vile conditionsUrbina reports roaches crawling across all surfaces and maggots flecked throughout food storessail sea slaves and indentured servants, dominated by tyrannical crews who whip, cane, flay and kill. They poach the high seas, snatching fish we laughably corral by invisible boundaries in waters we have arbitrarily divideda massive echo of colonial line-making.

On boats barely considered more reputable, idealistic people attempt to bring vigilante justice. Some dare to intercept Japanese whalers or to chase Interpols most wanted across thousands of miles of ocean. Anchored offshore in an enormous armory, private security guards await the call to protect against pirates. Yet state-owned vessels still flex firearms against phantom jurisdictions, and political tensions flare as the law is flailing.

How can you bring order to a place where winds exceed 100 miles per hour and waves reach over a hundred of feet high? The ocean drags both the weak and the brave into a frigid foreverits depths plied by monsters mythological, biological and man-made. In both shape and spirit, the international waters which dominate the globe are not an aberration but the norm.

What we learn from Urbinas journeys is nothing less than the deepest aspects of humanity itself. Dropped into a world without terra firmas systems and foibles, our darkest impulses emerge. But our most noble intentionsto save, to protect, to establish fair rule of lawappear as well. Neither has any chance against the power of the outlaw ocean, however, as society continues to ignore the majority of the globes surface. In the end, all the ink, blood, sweat and tears are mere drops in the highest seas.

B. David Zarley is a senior staff writer for Freethink and essayist, book and art critic. His writing has been features in The Atlantic, The Verge, Jezebel, VICE Sports, Frieze, Hazlitt and numerous other publications. He lives in Chicago.

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The Outlaw Ocean Exposes Crime in International Waters :: Books :: Features :: ian urbina :: Paste - Paste Magazine

The pounding surf from Hurricane Dorian causes extensive beach erosion along the Brevard County coast and exposed many sea turtle nests. Craig Bailey, Florida Today

The winds are still brisk out of the northeast and that will create issues for anyone who is seeking to fish offshore or along the beaches. The trade off has been a long stretch of really good surfing conditions so some are not concerned with having to leave the rods at home as they take out their boards.

Big redfish brought big smiles for this couple who fished this week with Capt. Jon Lulay of Mosquito Lagoon Redfish Charters in Titusville.(Photo: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY JON LULAY)

Mosquito Lagoon:Capt. Jon Lulay of Mosquito Lagoon Redfish Charters in Titusville said it's getting to be that time of year. The big redfish are starting to school in the lagoon and anglers can catch them using soft plastic jerk baits on light jig heads, gold spoons or shrimp. Be stealthy when approaching these schools because they spook easily and are getting a lot of angling pressure. Big black drum are also in the mix and there are some trout and medium-sized tarpon around, too.

More: The mullet migration is underway, energizing the action

Offshore:Big seas will keep even the bigger boats in port through the weekend and into next week. The swell from Humberto, while generating big surf, is not doing much to encourage fishing.

Surf:Big surf is keeping anglers from being able to fish for whiting, snook and pompano inn the trough. Dirty water will linger for days after the swell finally drops out. Expect to find some beach erosion, too, as high tides are bringing the waves all the way up to the stairs and dune crossovers.

More: Humberto brings waves and surf to Brevard

Indian River Lagoon:There is always somewhere in the lagoon where an angler can find a place to fish out of the wind. That will be helpful the next few days. Trout and redfish can be caught along shorelines where there are mangroves. Sight casting will not be possible, really, as the winds have the waters dirtied again. Blind cast with cut bait or free-lined finger mullet, if they can be cast netted. Snook are biting, too, around seawalls and under docks. Tarpon are in the canals and channels.

Sebastian Inlet:Expect to find access to the north jetty deck closed temporarily as repairs are being done, and high seas will keep it off limits anyway. Still, fishing from the shorelines is productive for snook, redfish, flounder, snapper and black drum. The beginning of the outgoing tide is probably the better time to fish.

Freshwater:The water levels are pretty high throughout the region, as they should be during the peak of rainy season. Tilapia are along the edges of canals, lakes and water retention ponds and can be caught with a cane pole and dough ball on a small hook, or with bowfishing gear. Bass fishing has been picking up since water temperatures have been falling slightly.

Ed Killer is an outdoors columnist for the USA Today Network based on the Treasure Coast. Friend him on Facebook at Ed Killer, follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @tcpalmekiller, email him ated.killer@tcpalm.com.

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Humberto's waves great for surfing, not so much for surf fishing - Florida Today

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF MIGRATION LITERATURE: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns, edited by Dohra Ahmad. (Penguin, $17.) This collection of writings about migration includes excerpts from work by Phillis Wheatley, Edwidge Danticat (who also contributes the foreword), Salman Rushdie, Marjane Satrapi, Zadie Smith and others. The book seeks to refine and enlarge our definition of migrant literature, our critic Parul Sehgal writes. These stories and poems push back against the fallacies that migration is always elective; that migrants are always keen to leave their home countries; that migration is one-way, and necessarily leads to a better fate.

THE INSTITUTE, by Stephen King. (Scribner, $30.) In Kings most frightening books like this one, about the abduction of psychically gifted children the evil is perpetrated not by supernatural creatures, but by ordinary people like you and me. Our reviewer, Laura Miller, says the novel is as consummately honed and enthralling as the very best of his work. How do you maintain your dignity and your humanity in an environment designed to strip you of both? That theme, such an urgent one in literature from the 20th century onward, falls well within Kings usual purview.

WE, THE SURVIVORS, by Tash Aw. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) The protagonist of Aws latest novel, a Malaysian man of modest means, has committed murder and served jail time for it; as he unspools his story, it becomes a searching commentary on the desperate conditions of the largely invisible work force propelling the global economy. Aw is a precise stylist; with a few, lean images, he evokes a country on the cusp of change: a sofa still sheathed in plastic to protect it from everyday life, the rusting tin for Danish butter cookies now holding a mans life savings, writes our reviewer, Hannah Beech (The Timess Southeast Asia bureau chief in Bangkok). The laborers who built modern Malaysia, Aw reminds us, are destined for obscurity, each layer of cement and heavy load they carry crushing who they really are.

THE OUTLAW OCEAN: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier, by Ian Urbina. (Knopf, $30.) Urbinas riveting chronicle of crime and lawlessness on the high seas based on a series of deeply reported features for The New York Times ranges from Somalia to the Philippines to the Antarctic, profiling pirates, slavers, poachers and others. Urbina highlights how, in overlooking the seas, weve allowed that void to become a vacuum for corruption, violence and lawlessness, a stage for gruesome deaths and even more gruesome lives, Blair Braverman writes in her review. And then he brings us into intimate contact with those lives, forcing witness.

EVERYTHING INSIDE: Stories, by Edwidge Danticat. (Knopf, $25.95.) The unreliability of the human heart connects many of the stories in this beautiful book, throughout which Danticats birthplace, Haiti, emerges in almost mythic fashion as a land that exists both in the past and the present even as it remains largely invisible. Apart from the land and people of Haiti, Aminatta Forna writes in her review, the books defining qualities are Danticats precise yet emotionally charged prose and the way she has curated this slim volume, bringing its elements together to create a satisfying whole.

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11 New Books We Recommend This Week - The New York Times

This post was first published by theCenter for Climate and Life,a research initiative based at Columbia UniversitysLamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

The JOIDES Resolution at the pier in Punta Arenas, Chile. (Photo: Thomas Ronge & IODP)

During the first half of 2019, two differentInternational Ocean Discovery Program(IODP) expeditions took international teams of scientists to the stormy Southern Ocean under the leadership ofLamont-Doherty Earth Observatoryscientists.

Maureen RaymoandGisela Wincklereach spent two months doing stints as co-chief scientist aboard the research vesselJoides Resolution. Their expeditions involved gathering information that will enable the geoscience community to learn more about Earths climate history.

Raymo, a paleoceanographer and director of theLamont Core Repository, was onIODP Expedition 382from March to May in areas of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.As co-chief scientists, Raymo and Michael Weber, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Bonn, co-led a team of 30 scientists from around the world who are investigating how Antarcticas ice sheets responded to past global warming.

From May to July, Winckler, a climate scientist andCenter for Climate and Life Fellow, served as co-chief scientist forIODP Expedition 383in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean. She and co-chief scientist Frank Lamy, a geologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, led a different group of 30 international scientists on an expedition to drill sediment cores along the Chilean Margin and in the Central South Pacific to study how the dynamics of the Southern Ocean affect the global climate system.

Sediment cores are records of Earths history: They contain the fossils of tiny organisms, mineral dust blown from the continents, and rocky material scraped by glaciers off the land and carried out to sea by icebergs. Specialized research vessels like theJoides Resolutionenable the collection of these sediments in the form of long cores. By analyzing the composition and geochemical fingerprints of the material in each core, scientists can figure out past variations in temperature, wind patterns, current speeds, and where any icebergs have come from and when.

Both expeditions will use the information contained within their newly recovered cores to examine how the atmosphere, oceans, and ice sheets responded to past global warming. These research projects are still in the early stages and will unfold over many years. What the scientists uncover will help the geoscience community make more accurate predictions about Earths future and enable us to better understand and adapt to climate change.

Iceberg Alley

Raymos expedition drilled sediment cores at five sites in an area in the Scotia Sea known as Iceberg Alley. Its east of the Antarctic Peninsula and many icebergs that break off the continent pass through the area.

The drilling was surprisingly successful, said Raymo, There was a very real possibility that there would be a lot of time lost getting out of the way of icebergs and bad weather and high seas. And while we did lose some time to those influences, most of the time we were drilling.

New sediment cores bring smiles to the core laboratory on the Joides Resolution. Maureen Raymo, co-chief scientist, is second from left. (Photo: Marlo Garnsworthy & IODP)

Eighteen sediment cores totaling almost three kilometers in length were recovered. The oldest cores date to the middle Miocene epoch, between 12 and 16 million years ago. Raymo said she was surprised that the drilling produced cores with continuous sedimentation for millions of years. Typically records near Antarctica have a lot of gaps in them, but ours are just beautiful continuous records of climate change, she said, giving credit to her co-chief, Mike Weber for identifying the drilling sites.

Raymo said the debris in the cores varies with age. Thats telling you that the dynamics of the Antarctic ice is changing dramatically through time, she said. Raymo and her expedition colleagues dont yet know what the changes indicate; they will discover that by investigating the sediment. But the changes show that the Antarctic ice sheet has not been as stable over millions of years as previously thought.

Now that the sediment core material is at Lamont, Raymo and her colleagues have begun quantitative analyses of the iceberg material in the cores. Raymo is focused on trying to understand the Antarctic ice sheets history for the time period between one and two million years ago, and establishing what conditions might cause the ice sheet to melt now.

A newly split sediment core collected during Raymos expedition. (Photo: Lee Stevens & IODP)

We have no idea how vulnerable the Antarctic ice sheet is to a modest amount of global warming, said Raymo. So were trying to figure out how the ice responded to warming in the past.

Knowing how fast the ice melted in the past is critical to understanding how Antarctica might respond to increased warming. And that will help scientists predict future sea level rise.

This wasnt Raymos first time serving as a co-chief scientist but she still feels its a privilege. As chief scientist, you really get to be a part of every sector of the science, she said. You get to solve problems with everybody, and you get to interface with the captain and the drillers.

Raymo says the hardest part of the expedition was working the midnight to noon graveyard shift for two months. But she also loved being at sea for that long. You can walk off the ship feeling like you have made lifelong friends with people that you didnt know when you walked on the ship.

The diverse team of expedition scientists, half women and half men, came from all over the world. Raymo says she found the environment less sexist and stressful with a crew that is comprised equally of women and men compared to life on a research vessel 30 years ago, when most participants where men.

The Pacific Sector of the Southern Ocean

Wincklers expedition drilled sediment cores in the central South Pacific, halfway between Chile and New Zealand, in the middle of nowhere, she said, where no expedition had drilled before.(Read Wincklers blog posts about the expedition here.)

Their science plan was to drill at four sites in the Central South Pacific, and three more sites at the Chilean Margin. The scientists hoped to obtain cores spanning the past five million years, including the Pliocene period, three to four million years ago. During the Pliocene, carbon dioxide levels were similar to what they are today, the planet was warmer, and global sea level was a good bit higher.

At two sites, the ship was able to drill even deeper in time, to the Upper Miocene period, about eight million years ago.

Gisela Winckler carrying a sediment core during IODP Expedition 383. (Photo: Tim Fulton & IODP)

Seeing that happen, core after core after core, drilling deeper and deeper into the sediments, hundreds of meters was fantastic, said Winckler. These beautiful, continuous sequences are ideal for interpreting the climate information in the sediments because it allows you to know where you are in terms of time.

The scientists recovered almost three kilometers of sediment core and some contained surprises. Drop stones, or large pebbles transported by icebergs, provide evidence that icebergs of the past had traveled to the ships location 1,000 miles from Antarctica, where no icebergs exist today. The finding could advance the teams research on how the Southern Ocean works as an interface between whats happening on Antarctica and the rest of the planet.

And at two sites, the team drilled into the basalt of the ocean crust much earlier than expected, illustrating how little is known about the ocean floor. Meanwhile, microfossil experts onboard found well-preserved microfossils of two brand new species of foraminifera, single-celled planktonic organisms.

Once the sediment cores were brought onto the ship and split open, the team saw color changes revealing distinct climates. Different types of microorganismsthe main ingredient of the sediments in the Southern Oceanthrive under different conditions, so you can see these time changes from warmer time periods into colder time periods or vice versa, just by looking at the color, said Winckler. Its sort of the poetry of these sediments and how they tell you their story.

Winckler is pleased with how well the expedition went, despite an unexpected change in schedule. In the middle of the expedition, a monster storm forced the ship to leave the region and travel about 1,500 miles north, where they ended up spending two weeks. Due to the storm, the expedition wasnt able to recover sediment from their southernmost site in the Antarctic part of the Southern Ocean, a crucial piece of their research project.

We never had a window of time with weather conditions long enough to work there successfully, said Winckler. That was the most difficult part of the expeditiongiving that up.

The bow of the Joides Resolution plunges into stormy seas during a storm the ship encountered during Expedition 383. (Photo: Christina Riesselman)

The cores from both expeditions will be archived at IODPs Gulf Coast Repository in College Station, Texas, with samples distributed all over the world to the expedition participants. At Lamont, Winckler, together withJenny MiddletonandJulia Gottschalk, two Lamont postdocs who also participated in the expedition, will analyze the sediment records to determine how Earth got into stages warmer than what we are experiencing today. They will examine the dust in the cores and how it connects to the carbon cycle, carbon storage, and atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The international team of scientists will also analyze the different sizes of grains in the sediments which can reveal how fast the Arctic Circumpolar Current, the oceans fastest current, traveled in the past; the speed of the current influences the whole climate system.

Winckler says the Southern Ocean is one of the key regions that determine the planets climate, so scientists need to better understand how the entire system works and how fast it changes.

We need to feed our climate models better information and better constraints to improve how well we can predict the future, said Winckler.

We need that information about the natural variability of the past to understand what we are doing by impacting the natural climate system with our outrageous fossil fuel emissions.

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Two Months in the Southern Ocean, for Science - State of the Planet

Following MaltaToday's story of war on the high seas, where Tunisian poachers go so far as to ram Maltese fishing vessels and stealing lampuki from Maltese floats, the government said that it had taken the issue to the European Commission.

Clint Camilleri, writing in MaltaToday, said, "The European Commission has taken the view that a spatial dispute does indeed exist between Maltese and Tunisian fishers on lampuki fishing, and is therefore expected to raise the issue in the next meeting of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM)in Greece."

Camilleri, the Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries said that beyond the 25-mile radius from Maltese shores, in which the Armed Forces could intervene, the Maltese government had little power.

"This is not to say that we intend to sit on the fence, and indeed finding a long-term solution to this matter sits up there among our topmost priorities. Nevertheless it is clear that, objectively, this can only be achieved within the contexts of international agreements and forums," Camilleri wrote.

The GFCM is the regional fisheries management organisation, of which Malta and Tunisia are contracting partiesback in 2002, Camilleri said, an issue had been raised with Tunisia and the country's authorities had as a result put a temporary ban on poaching. Camilleri wrote that this is a reason to believe that diplomacy and negotiations with the Tunisian authorities could represent a way forward.

Gozitan crews have told MaltaToday of the terrors they face on the high seas. A Tunisian boat, brandishing a pictureof al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, and known colloquially as the 'Bin Laden' has rammed local fishing boats in the past, preventing them from accessing their ownkannizzati(fishing aggregating devices) whilst other vessels plunder Maltese spoils.

The crews have vividly described the horrors of Tunisian vessels ramming their own, often times brandishing machetes and petrol bombs and threatening Maltese fishermen with violence.

"I wish to assure all fishers that I am well aware of the hardships and threats that they have to face when they are out at sea. It is, therefore, with the utmost responsibility that I reiterate my own and governments commitment to their well-being, and I shall not rest in my endeavours to find the best possible avenues for helping and supporting them in their work.

"I am convinced that only possible solution to the current problem is clearly to negotiate an agreement with the Tunisian authorities within the GFCM, with the help of the European Commission. This is what I will be working towards in the coming weeks," Camilleri wrote.

He said that the government would be engaging with EU member states to find a "permanent solution" to the war currently staged in the Mediterranean over Malta's fishing capabilities.

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Government calls on European Commission to fend off Tunisian poachers - MaltaToday

Many volumes of books containing legal precedent from state and federal criminal and civil cases line the walls of the Pitkin County Courthouses district courtroom.

Pitkin County District Judge Chris Seldin regularly reminds defendants of their rights in his courtroom especially their right to remain silent and their right to an attorney.

It gets tricky, though, when defendants dont acknowledge his jurisdiction to oversee a case.

They may be part of a fringe group known as sovereign citizens though they often wont actually call themselves as such, preferring freemen or state citizens or any other number of names. Sovereign citizens subscribe to a belief that by not consenting to be governed, the government doesnt actually have any jurisdiction over their actions, especially when it comes to taxes and property.

As such, many sovereign citizens are wary of any perceived contract, often believing that a Social Security card or birth certificate are nefarious contracts literally enslaving you to the state. Further, because they fervently believe that renouncing such binds is the first step toward sovereignty, theyre often not keen on having others speak for them in a courtroom.

Isaac Brehm is one such example. He made headlines in March when he and another man were arrested for squatting for about three months in an Aspen house valued at nearly $3.6 million. Brehm has become somewhat notorious in the Pitkin County Courthouse, however, not because of the charges he faces which include six felonies ranging from burglary to vehicular theft but because of his insistence on representing himself.

He has the sovereign citizen idea in his head, and its not going to serve him, Deputy District Attorney Don Nottingham said outside the courtroom before Brehms preliminary hearing in July.

Brehm challenged the legitimacy of that hearing before it began, despite being the one who had requested it (a preliminary hearing is a right, not a requirement in the criminal justice process).

My proof of claims, Brehm started. I cant remember exactly the language, but basically asking for proof of claim from all parties.

For reference, he submitted a file hed presumably found on the internet.

To the extent that youre asking for information concerning the jurisdiction of the court, its your job to do the research on that. Ive already told you, the court believes it has jurisdiction to handle this case. I have no doubt about that, in fact, Seldin said, perusing the document Brehm had handed him.

It was clear that Seldin was familiar with the argument presented.

In terms of the legal basis for the courts jurisdiction, youll have to go do that research yourself, since you decided to represent yourself as the defendant in this case. With respect to your rights, Ive already advised you of your rights in this case, he continued.

I object, your Honor, Brehm retorted. Pretty much, youre saying I can go find this information, but a lot of this information Im asking for, I cannot just go find. I object. Id like to at least read this on the record.

At that, Seldins patience reached its capacity.

That request is going to be denied because that would be a waste of time and judicial resources. It will be admitted into the record as a filing by you, he stated flatly.

Brehm, equal parts frustrated and deflated, said for the record that this was pretty much blown off.

It happens in courtrooms all across the country, Nottingham said.

It is a not uncommon thing for defendants to look this stuff up on the internet and think that these are valid defenses, he said.

A strawman for everyone

Those defenses become very particular. Essentially, most sovereign citizens believe that at some point in American history, a corporation secretly acquired the United States before going bankrupt. Desperate to offset its losses, that corporation offered American citizens as collateral to financiers. It accomplished this by creating a strawman for every person; that is, the paper trail of a persons citizenship such as a birth certificate.

Even more specifically, many sovereign citizens believe that the government funds a secret bank account for each strawman to the tune of $630,000. Others still believe that the Social Security Administration was created to back that $630,000 amount.

This is your alter ego, all-capital letters-written-name strawman, explains the website Jabajabba.com. STRAWMAN is a legal term for a front man, or nominal party to a transaction, transmitting utility, existing in name only, which allows the owner to accomplish some purpose not otherwise permitted.

The strawman is a concept in sovereign citizen circles that describes a supposed shell legal identity for each citizen that is somehow separate from the actual person.

For instance, if a bill comes in the mail, but a persons name is misspelled by a letter, that bill is to the recipients strawman and, the argument goes, there is no legal requirement to pay it. And since paper agreements dont matter, the extremists in the movement will even employ a certain paper terrorism, as prosecutors call it, to clog legal systems, claim illegitimate tax refunds or even threaten law enforcement.

Former Boulder District Attorney Stan Garnett experienced the latter firsthand. In 2015, he was on the receiving end of a targeted intimidation campaign by sovereign citizens. They dubbed themselves the Peoples Grand Jury of Colorado and sent phony arrest warrants often signed with a bloody fingerprint and filed liens against property owned by Colorado public officials.

They became known as the Colorado 8. The ringleader, Bruce Doucette, was sentenced to 38 years in prison in what the Colorado State Attorneys General Office saw as a message to others who would follow suit. Doucette opted to represent himself during his trial.

Since then, district attorneys and police officers all over the state have undergone training on how to recognize and handle a sovereign citizen, including locally. In January last year, the entire Aspen Police Department completed a four-hour online course on the matter through the industry resource center PoliceOne, Sgt. Mike Tracey confirmed.

Nottingham, too, attended a Colorado District Attorneys Council Conference put on by the attorney generals office that featured experts on sovereign citizens, and District Judge John Neiley even compiled a comprehensive document for fellow judges complete with suggestions, such as keeping their signed oath of office at the ready.

And the Colorado Supreme Court has made it very clear that things like calling out the fringe on the flag does not affect the court. There is Colorado constitutional authority and United States constitutional authority to have courts, Nottingham said. Personal jurisdiction is personal jurisdiction; there is no corporate entity, and there are many cases that talk about clerical issues, like if you write a name in all caps versus one capital letters and lowercase letters; theres no difference between those things.

While Nottingham and Seldin seemingly see sovereign citizens in the courtroom every year, Tracey said he could recall maybe one in-field incident in 17 years of police work: Redstone resident Stefan Schutter.

Schutter was part of a group of 12 adults and juveniles in 1999 colloquially known as Aspens Dirty Dozen for a string of armed robberies and burglaries that year. He served about six years of a 10-year sentence that he received after being found guilty in 2000 of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and theft. After being released in 2005, he earned himself another 10-year sentence after being found in the possession of an assault rifle, a revolver and a slew of drugs.

Schutter was not pitching the sovereign citizen argument then, but both Tracey and Sgt. Rick Magnuson recall him making that claim when he was arrested for DUI in 2017.

Hes not the only one from that 1999 group who subsequently used some of the sovereign citizen talking points in his defense strategy. Yuri Ognacevic, now 38, was arrested in July for two purse snatchings in Aspen and holding up a concession stand at Theatre Aspen. In his second court appearance in August, he told Seldin that he had every intention of representing himself.

Im well aware of my Sixth Amendment rights to represent myself, he told Seldin in the courtroom. I also have notes on a Supreme Court ruling from 1975, if you would like to hear those.

Though his actions may not be as outright as Brehm reading an actual script, its still a trademark move of a sovereign citizen.

Of the estimated 300,000 people in the United States who at some level subscribe to the ideals espoused in the sovereign citizen movement, only about one-third of them would act on those beliefs, according to a Forbes article by J.J. MacNab, a fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security program on extremism.

Be imaginative. Pull a line from the 1215 version of the Magna Carta, a definition from a 1913 legal dictionary, a quote from a founding father or two, and put it in the blender with some official-sounding Supreme Court case excerpts you found on like-minded websites, she wrote. Et voil, not only have you proven that you dont have to obey the law you dislike, heck, its your patriotic duty to disobey it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just plain un-American and is probably part of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy to ensure that Chihuahuas are slaves to the U.S. government.

Why is a homeland security and extremism expert writing about sovereign citizens? Because the Federal Bureau of Investigations considers them domestic terrorists.

That does not mean that Isaac Brehm is a terrorist. Seldin treated him more as simply misguided, reading from scripts he didnt comprehend, especially during Brehms closing statements at his preliminary hearing.

Id like to say, you know, pretty much you cant ignore the lack of jurisdiction, and once its challenged, it must be proven. And, uh, you probably know, tax appropriation, he started. Your implied consent is being challenged.

He then went on to list several U.S. codes and sections, eventually even getting into the legal definition of piracy.

Let me stop you there. Were not anywhere near the high seas; were in the Rocky Mountains in the center of the country, alright? Seldin interrupted. Heres my concern: Youre reading from a document that, its not clear to me you actually understand. I dont want to see you getting convicted of a crime that you may or may not have committed solely because you chose to represent yourself and you botched your own defense. Do you understand?

Still, Brehm has opted to persist in his own representation, and his trial is set for January next year.

He tried really hard to help the guy, Nottingham said of Seldin in reflection later.

Sovereign citizens often believe that official documents such as Social Security cards and birth certificates literally enslave people in a contract with the government to which theyre not privy.

Taking it to extremes

More often than not, sovereign citizens are more of Brehms ilk. To this day, Nottingham remembers his first courtroom encounter with the movement.

When I was an intern in Jefferson County dealing with barking dog cases and parking tickets, we had a guy that came in and started about the fringe on the flag and that it must be a court of admiralty and not a court of common law, and I was like, What is he talking about? he said.

The theories that many seeking the Truth return to when dealing with the criminal justice system can be disarming. And that can be dangerous if things do escalate, warns PoliceOne documents.

The threat to officer safety posed by sovereign citizens is well known. One must look no further than the tragic deaths of Sergeant Brandon Paudert and Officer Bill Evans of the West Memphis Police Department in order to understand the risk of spontaneous violence from self-proclaimed sovereign citizens, one article reads.

Again, MacNab estimates that only one-third of an already relatively small group less than .001 percent of the population would act on extremist beliefs, but the beliefs are indeed extreme.

Remember Jabajabba.com? In the side panel of the webpage breaking down the strawman theory, there is a column with links to such literature as The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America and Human Biodiversity and the Hidden Origins of the Caucasian Race.

And while certainly not all proclaimed sovereign citizens would align with white nationalism, the movements history is rooted in it. A group of self-proclaimed Nazi sympathizers who called themselves the Comitatus Posse founded what became the first generation of the sovereign citizen movement, from 1970 to 1995. Perhaps because Comitatus Posse existed in the Pacific Northwest, the broader movement which typically consisted of white, high-school-educated men thrived most in the western part of the country.

Today, sovereign citizens claim almost all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. But some of the biggest court cases are still in western states: Cliven and Ammon Bundy, who in an armed standoff occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2014, both used language in media interviews familiar to sovereign citizens. And of course, Doucette and his Colorado 8 still influence current-day training priorities in the state.

Perhaps the geography is coincidental; perhaps its because of the history of the Comitatus Posse. Or maybe its cultural.

Colorado is a sort of libertarian-ish state, Nottingham said. Alaska, Montana, Colorado sort of these Western states that do believe that the authority of the government is derived by the consent of the governed. Thats a foundational aspect of government, of what it is. Thats not individual consent; that is group consent of the government. You dont get to opt out whenever you want. People have tried that before, and they get charged with treason.

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Against the grain, against the law | News - Aspen Daily News