Found: The clearest ocean waters on Earth - earth - 29 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment

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Tedetti says the ocean waters, which the researchers sampled using these canisters, were "almost violet" (Image: Joséphine Ras)Enlarge Satellite images reveal the chlorophyll-poor patch of water in the south-east Pacific (in purple) (Image: SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, ORBIMAGE)Enlarge
As clear as the clearest lakes on the planet, salty as ocean waters, and roughly the size of the Mediterranean – this, say researchers, is the clearest and most lifeless patch of ocean in the world. And it is in the middle of the Pacific.
"Satellite images that track the amount of chlorophyll in ocean waters suggested that this was one of the most life-poor systems on Earth," explains Patrick Raimbault of the University of the Mediterranean, in Marseille, France (see image, right).
In October 2004, Raimbault and colleagues set out to study the remarkable patch of ocean water on a three month cruise – called BIOSOPE – that left from Tahiti in French Polynesia, passed by Easter Island and ended on the Chilean coast. Along the way, they sampled the water's chemistry, physics and biology.
Marc Tedetti, also from the University of the Mediterranean, was on the expedition to investigate the water's clarity. He was struck by the colour of the water, which he describes as closer to violet than to blue (see image, right).
Found: The clearest ocean waters on Earth - earth - 29 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment

Tags follow 'Nemo' fish to home

Scuba Diving Fiji


An adult orange clownfish (Science and S.R. Thorrold)
About 60% of the young orange clownfish found their way home

The remarkable homing instincts of some coral reef fish have been revealed.

A team tagged two species of reef fish larvae to see where the juveniles were going after spending weeks and even months maturing in open sea.

It found most of the orange clownfish - made famous by the Finding Nemo movie - and vagabond butterflyfish returned to the reef where they had first hatched.

Writing in the journal Science, the team said the discovery could have implications for marine protection.

'Marine fish lay very small eggs, and when they do, they are released into the water column,' explained co-author Professor Geoff Jones from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia.

'They develop into a really tiny little larvae that we think drift around in the water currents, sometimes for months.

'The missing link in our understanding of coral reef fish has always been: where do the larvae go?'

Help from Mum

But until now, finding this out has been extremely tricky - attaching tags to miniscule larvae is not an easy task.

So the international team of researchers tackled the problem by getting the mother to help.

Satellite image of the Kimbe Island (Science)
The study "