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Whale Fall

Discussion in 'Interesting Shares' started by jayasala42, Mar 19, 2024.

  1. jayasala42

    jayasala42 IL Hall of Fame

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    During a 2019 expedition, researchers discovered a whale fall at 10,623 feet below the surface near Davidson Seamount in NOAA's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

    The ocean's depths are supplied by nutrients falling down from the surface waters. When whales die and sink, the whale carcasses, or whale falls, provide a sudden, concentrated food source and a bonanza for organisms in the deep sea.

    Different stages in the decomposition of a whale carcass support a succession of marine biological communities. Scavengers consume the soft tissue in a matter of months. Organic fragments, or detritus, enrich the sediments nearby for over a year.

    The whale skeleton can support rich communities for years to decades, both as a hard substrate (or surface) for invertebrate colonization and as a source of sulfides from the decay of organic compounds of whale bones. Microbes live off of the energy released from these chemical reactions and form the basis of ecosystems for as long as the food source lasts.

    At deep sea levels this forms a new food web and provides energy to support single- and multi-cell organisms and sponges, thus adding to the ocean's food chain.
    When a human being is diagnozed of brain death,
    so many advices are extended to the care takers for organ donation-of heart, liver.kidney, eyes etc.
    But the whale that has lived for 100 years and falls dead into the sea becomes the life source of thousands of organisms for another hundred years
    Jayasala 42
     
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  2. Thyagarajan

    Thyagarajan IL Hall of Fame

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    The conclusion is contemplative. Thanks fir the information.
     

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