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Thermal stress

A rapid chilling of superficial skeletal muscles (conductive cooling) creates a crippling weakening.

Thermal issues affect the comfort, performance and decompression stress experienced by divers. The impact varies with the timing, direction and magnitude of the thermal stress. Thermal protection can be provided by a variety of passive and active systems. Active systems should be used with particular care since they can markedly alter inert gas exchange and decompression risk.

British Steamer Nisbet Grammer

Historic steamship found in Lake Ontario

Shipwreck explorers Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville began their initial search for the vessel in September 2008.

What was thought to be an easy shipwreck to find turned out to be more of a challenge than they expected, Kennard said. Their search did, however, lead to several new discoveries in this area of the lake.

Kennard said they found the wreck of the Nesbit Grammer in late August 2014 in more than 500 feet of water about 8 miles from the shore of Somerset, N.Y., but he was unable to share the information at that time.

Astern of the wreck, Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Filippo Ronca measures the muzzle bore diameter of one of two cannons found on the site, serving to identify this gun as a brass 6-pounder

Historic Franklin Expedition shipwreck identified as HMS Erebus

Two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were part of Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to Asia.

The ships disappeared after they became locked in ice in 1846 and were missing for more than a century and a half until last month's discovery by a group of public-private searchers led by Parks Canada. It was not known until now which of the two ships had been found.

Great white sharks as scavengers

University of Miami scientists Dr Neil Hammerschlag and Austin Gallagher, in collaboration with Chris Fallows of Apex Expeditions, South Africa, observed the feeding activity around four dead whales that appeared in the False Bay region during a period of ten years. They concluded that such bountiful sources of energy-rich blubber may be a significant food source for the great sharks.



Reef fish called Chromis viridis (blue-green chromis) and Chromis margaritifer (bicolor chromis) swim among the staghorn coral (Acropora acuminata) at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific.

World’s Largest Marine Protected Area Designated by President Obama

President Obama announced today that he’s creating the world’s largest marine protected area.

The proclamation — which Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced during an oceans meeting he convened in New York on Thursday — will mean added protections for deep-sea coral reefs and other marine ecosystems that administration officials say are among “the most vulnerable” to the negative effects of climate change.

Egyptian Ahmed Gabr dives to a record 332.35 meters

It only took Gabr 12 minutes to reach the record-breaking depth, originally planned to be 350 meters.

Gabr utilized more than 60 different diving tanks and multiple gases simply to keep himself alive on the trek back to the surface.

A team of hyperbaric doctors developed custom-made decompression tables to help Gabr back on his feet upon completion of his record-breaking endeavour.

I travelled with nine tanks and decompressed for 14 hours," he told NBC News. Deep sea divers risk drowning, equipment malfunction or decompression sickness.

Mr. Bruce

Western Australia Shark Cull Rejected

The policy allowing for the culling of any sharks longer than 3m was introduced after seven lethal shark attacks in three years off West Australian beaches. WA’s government proposed the new program in an effort to keep beachgoers safe that involved setting out baited drum lines, which consist of a large baited hook attached to a buoy and an anchor to hold it in place, in designated zones along popular beaches with the intention of killing great white sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks who were larger than three meters.

Over 30 years of searching has culminated with the sonar detection by a Canadian

Franklin shipwreck found in the arctic after 170 Years

One of two British explorer ships that vanished in the Arctic more than 160 years ago has been found, Canada's prime minister says.

Stephen Harper said it was unclear which ship had been found, but photo evidence confirmed it was one of them.

I am delighted to announce that this year’s Victoria Strait Expedition has solved one of Canada’s greatest mysteries, with the discovery of one of the two ships belonging to the Franklin Expedition lost in 1846.