Moon rise, May 5th, 2012
Once again I have to gladly thank my dear friend Star Gilley
for reminding me to “look to The Heavens”. We have beautiful moon rises here in
Baja pretty regularly but this one was the closest approach of the moon to our
Mother planet for the year, worth a moment of appreciation.
Fifteen years ago, I had a moon like this off the stern as I
sailed an 84’ sailing schooner across The Pacific.
The schooner Dariabar
We were in the very middle of The Pacific Ocean and I was
steering by The Constellation Orion.
Me at the helm, 1998
The Moonbeam that night was like liquid Mercury and pointed
us toward Hawai’i. Last May 5th, this Moon, pointed directly to me on my bodega
roof and my Shangri-La.
If there is any question in your mind of the importance of
The Moon, check out this article from Scientific American.
Without the Moon, Would There Be Life on Earth?
By driving the
tides, our lunar companion may have jump-started biology--or at least
accelerated its progression
The
ocean tides mirror life itself. Their ebb and flow pay homage to the cyclic
nature of the cosmos along even the most secluded seashores. But is life itself
also ultimately a fluke of the tides?
If so, life may ultimately owe its
origins to our serendipitously large moon. The sun and wind also drive the
ocean's oscillations, but it is the moon's gravitational tug that is
responsible for the lion's share of this predictable tidal flux.
Our current
Earth–moon system, according to the prevailing theory of lunar formation,
reflects our solar system's early game of planetary billiards, when colliding
planetary embryos created entirely new versions of themselves—in the case of
our own planet, a disproportionately large natural satellite in close
orbit.
It all started some 4.5 billion years ago when, as theory has it, our nascent Earth was blindsided by a Mars-size planetary
embryo, believed to have spun Earth into its initial fast rotation
of roughly 12 hours per day. The molten mantle thrown into orbit after the
catastrophic lunar-forming impact quickly coalesced into our moon. Within a few
thousand years, Earth cooled to an object with a molten surface and a steam
atmosphere. Life emerged some 700 million years later, or about 3.8 billion
years ago.
But four billion years ago a cooling Earth already had an ocean,
but remained barren. The moon was perhaps half as distant as it is now, and as
a result, the ocean tides were much more extreme.
At an average distance of
235,000 miles (380,000 kilometers), the moon is currently receding from Earth at a
rate of 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) per year. As it does, Earth's own spin
rate is slowing. And, in the process, roughly 1020 joules of gravitational
energy is shed into the oceans annually.*
Over the eons, all that energy has
had an evolutionary impact.
"The oceans' tidal flow helps transport heat
from the equator to the poles," says Bruce Bills, a geodynamicist at the NASA Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Without the lunar tides, it's
conceivable that climate oscillations from the ice age to the interglacial
would be less extreme than they are. Such glaciations caused migrations of
animal and plant species that probably helped speed up speciation."
Bills
also points out that such tidal heat transfer could have also mitigated climate
fluctuations. The problem in determining which "tidal forcing"
scenario is correct, he says, is that climate researchers currently lack data
spanning extremely long timescales. Even so, Peter
Raimondi, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz,
says the tools of evolution are also driven by the tides' influence on these
intertidal regions.
"In a rocky intertidal area," Raimondi says,
"it's very clear there are strong evolutionary pressures brought on by a
changing environment over a short spatial scale. Without our moon, our marine
environment would be much less rich in terms of species diversity."
But
is the influence of the lunar tides actually responsible for life itself?
If
life originated around deep ocean hydrothermal vents (so-called black smokers),
then the lunar tides played a minor role, if any, says James Cowen, a biogeochemical oceanographer at
the University of Hawaii at Manoa. If, however, life originated in tidal
waters, he says, then tidal cycles could have played a major role.
Before leaving El Cardonal for my cataract operations in The
States, I took one last kayak out to The WZ. There was a fog bank out about 1
mile, not particularly rare, but always adding something to the “adventure”. As
I entered the fog I remembered that day in Bodega 35 years ago when I
encountered my first Humpback. As I was paddling back in towards shore I heard
some dolphins approaching from the north. I was out of the fog, it was a
beautiful day so I put on my mask and rolled in. Three Bottlenose Dolphins swam
by within about 15 feet, gave me a once over and continued on their way. These
were the first BN dolphins I had seen this season so it was a delight to say
hello.
There were also some Mobulas doing a mating dance nearby and
then a masked Boobie flew by 6 feet overhead. I finished the day by swimming in
from the tip of the reef....paradise!
Masked Boobie, not my pic
Two days before I left (I am now 10 days from returning to
my beloved Mexico) I went out in the panga to see if any last whales were
passing by on their way to The Arctic. My friends Noel and Bonnie came out with
me and we really lucked out by coming across a breaching male Humpback, I also
got a good ID (HB# 23 12).
HB# 23 12
It was my first time out with Vicente’s nephew Fabien, a
young man who caught on real quick to the need for proper positioning during a
photo sequence. Noel caught a nice 18 pound Dorado that we all shared and I saw
my first Brown Boobie, another fine day, no?
Noel and his Dorado......dinner!
Brown Boobie, not my pic
Here’s a great sequence of Humpback Whales trying to help a
Gray Whale calf during an Orca attack. Keep in mind that The Orcas are simply
doing their part in the greater scheme of the Biosphere.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17991601
HBs helping Gray
I’ll leave you with this:
I'll be back in Mexico on the 4th of June....with BIONIC eyes!
