Comments on: classifying the ocean bottom

classifying the ocean bottom

cmyk — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:14:45 -0800

The makers of Galaxy Zoo are not satisfied with classifying the cold depths of space. They also want to classify the slightly less cold depths of the ocean, with Seafloor Explorer, where anyone and everyone can help find and identify scallops, sea stars, crustaceans, and Other on various parts of the Atlantic ocean floor. Rarely there are fish. Often, there is sand. It seems to go on forever and often is full of starfish.

GalaxyZoo, previously and previouslier, is well known on the Blue. All of these are part of the Zooniverse collection of crowdsourced scientific identification sites, so if sand and clams aren't your thing, one of their other projects might be. There is, however, no "Your mom" classification for miscellaneous oceanic lifeforms.

By: felix

felix — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:37:39 -0800

and if that floats your boat, one of my good friends at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute recently released an upgraded Imaging Flow Cytobot which brings in images of plankton-scale creatures in the ocean for your delectation and appraisal.

By: foonly

foonly — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:46:55 -0800

Wow, that IFCB is pretty neat. Yea science!

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:49:49 -0800

But I'm right here.

By: showbiz_liz

showbiz_liz — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:51:19 -0800

Oh my god this is so fun I found a hermit crab

By: Gotanda

Gotanda — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:07:07 -0800

No species menu item for Dread Tentacular Deep Ones.

By: showbiz_liz

showbiz_liz — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:13:55 -0800

Ok I just tagged 37 scallops in a single photo, that is too many scallops

By: wigner3j

wigner3j — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:23:37 -0800

I just got 7 starfish, fun.

By: hurdy gurdy girl

hurdy gurdy girl — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:44:36 -0800

That is so cool. I did the tutorial and classified some ocean floor. It was fun! I think this is going to become my go-to mental break from work. Soothing AND helpful to science! Win-win. PS Great first post! (Just saw your comment in MetaTalk.)

By: SweetTeaAndABiscuit

SweetTeaAndABiscuit — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 17:34:28 -0800

Awesome! And it's SCIENCE!!

By: theredpen

theredpen — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 18:05:35 -0800

Mmmmm, science.

By: kiltedtaco

kiltedtaco — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 18:45:28 -0800

Ok I just tagged 37 scallops in a single photo, that is too many scallops Not on my dinner plate it's not.

By: dragoon

dragoon — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 18:51:23 -0800

Well if J.B.S. Haldane is right and God has "An inordinate fondness for beetles", then I guess we found out Poseidon really has a hardon for starfish. I'll try this out if nothing else for the chance of finding the source of the Bloop or R'lyeh or perhaps both at the same time.

By: elizardbits

elizardbits — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 18:53:27 -0800

I HAS FOUND A FISHIE his name is stanley we are best frands

By: zamboni

zamboni — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:51:03 -0800

The website is kind of coy about what the data will be used for- the short answer is fishing. From the forums: gringo92:

Mapping where all these scallops are, I'm wondering - is all this data going to trawling fleets? Just asking! Thanks!

nhv (project team):

good question short term maybe but more like the scallop resource allocators

... sgallager (project team):

Our intent is to develop the most scientifically sound estimates of sea scallop and other commercially important species abundances to enable NOAA and the Newengland Fisheries Management Council can make the best informed decisions for rotationally manageing the 9 or so regions along the northeast shelf. As part of managing commercially important stocks, we need to know more about how these organisms live within their own local ecosystem and relate to the physical, chemical, and biological aspects of their habitat. This includes processes going on in the water column such as temperature and food (chlorophyll). That is the major goal of this wide scale project.