END OF THE WORLD

[Ponderosa]

Baby wipes are the Cadillac of toilet paper

[G-spotter]

The Black Sea is the largest surface-exposed, permanently anoxic basin on this planet. In this area, the high intensity of photosynthetic primary production in the surface waters, the associated flux of organic carbon, and the shallow sill depth has led to the development and maintenance of the largest, stable oxic/anoxic interface on the planet (3). This interface, or chemocline (defined by the first appearance of hydrogen sulfide in the water column) is located at 81 to 99 m depth (3, 16). A 20- to 30-m-deep suboxic layer depleted in both O2 and H2S overlies the sulfide zone (16). The stratified water column in the Black Sea is believed to host more active and diverse microbial assemblages than anywhere else in the pelagic ocean (14). As such, the Black Sea is an excellent model system for studying oxic/anoxic interfaces, essentially stretching a chemocline normally encountered on the submillimeter scale over tens of meters.

Although other oxic/anoxic regions exist and reports of molecular characterization of microbial communities from the Cariaco Trench (23) or sedimentary systems (12, 22, 40, 42) have been published, few systematic profiles of the transition between oxic and anoxic bacterial communities beyond a domain- or group-specific approach have been reported. The purpose of this study was to characterize the Bacteria and Archaea populations in the Black Sea at a species-specific level and to correlate the vertical distribution of the various prokaryotic plankton with the profiles of terminal electron acceptors that occur throughout the oxic/anoxic chemocline.

[YocumRidge]

OMG, like, what should I do?

 

Eat one of those...

 

A true sign of the Apocalypse.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/shep-smith-outraged-by-ba_n_313304.html