Гольфстрим: всё дело в вязкости воды

Не так давно моему ребенку в школе задали задание по дисциплине «окружающий мир». Это такой способ расширения кругозора у школьников начальных классов в нынешнее время. Оставим в стороне недовольство нынешними стандартами образования, где школьник почему-то должен изучить все дисциплины без участия преподавателя. 

Задание состояло в том, чтобы выбрать одну из мировых катастроф последнего времени и разобраться, чем она чревата для жителей планеты и России в частности. 

На злобу дня ему попался Гольфстрим. Все вы знаете, что было такое теплое течение, проходящее через атлантический океан. Его слезы со словами «Мы все замерзнем» и побудили меня подробнее разобраться с произошедшим.


Изображение Гольфстрима на тепловом снимке со спутника

Так что же произошло?

20 апреля 2010 года в Мексиканском заливе в 80 километрах от побережья на месторождении Макондо компании British Petroleum в результате взрыва нефтяной платформы Deepwater Horizon через повреждения труб скважины на глубине 1500 метров начала выливаться нефть. Изливалась она так 152 дня.


Нефтяное пятно 24 мая 2010 года, вид из космоса

За это время вылилось 5 миллионов баррелей (682 тысячи тонн). Пожар на платформе длился 36 часов, после чего платформа затонула. Нефтяное пятно достигло площади 75 тысяч квадратных километров. Часть нефти была вынесена течением в океан.

В США размер федерального штрафа зависит от размеров катастрофы. Администрация нынешнего президента США позволила использовать British Petroleum для уменьшения размеров штрафа диспергент корексит 9527, который в связи с токсичностью был позднее заменен на корексит 9500. Впервые он был использован в 1989 году для ликвидации последствий кружения танкера Exxon Valdez, ныне запрещен к применению в Англии и ряде стран Европы. 


Танкер Exxon Valdez

Состав этого химиката держится в тайне, а мнения о его работе и токсичности расходятся от растворения до простого связывания и от нейтрального до жутко токсичного соответственно. В итоге смешивание осадило огромные количества нефти на глубину, создавая шельфы. Это частично решило проблему побережья США.

Собрать такое количество нефти работа трудоемкая, если не невыполнимая. В настоящее время нет эффективного метода очистки воды после разлива нефти.

Первым об остановке Гольфстрима сообщил доктор д-р Джанлуиджи Зангари, физик-теоретик из института Фраскати в Италии, в своей журнальной статье 12 июня 2010 г. (оригинал). Статья основывается на спутниковых данных колорадского центра аэродинамических исследований, согласованных с национальным управлением океанических и атмосферных исследований ВМС США. Автор указал на остановку вращения потоков воды в Мексиканском заливе и разбиение Гольфстрима на части. В последствии снимки были изменены на сервере колорадского центра аэродинамических исследований и теперь уже сложно сказать, кем и когда.


График изменения направления и скорости потока в Мексиканском заливе

Как шло течение

Холодное и более плотное Лабрадорское течение «подныривало» под теплое и более легкое течение Гольфстрим, не мешая ему обогревать Европу, достигая Мурманска. Затем Лабрадорское течение «выныривало» у берегов Испании под названием холодного Канарского течения, пересекало Атлантику, достигало Карибского моря, нагревалось и, проходя через петлю в Мексиканском заливе, уже под названием Гольфстрим беспрепятственно устремлялось обратно к Северу.

Гольфстрим был частью термохалинной системы циркуляции, ключевым элементом теплового регулирования планеты. Он отделял Англию и Ирландию от того, чтобы стать ледником. Сглаживал климат в скандинавских странах.

После сообщения д-ра Зангари канадский парламент создал комиссию для выяснения реального состояния дел с Гольфстримом вблизи берегов государства. Ее возглавил известный в США ученый-океанолог Рональд Раббит, технолог по переработке биомассы Мирового океана и улучшения окружающей среды. Специальный краситель, не причиняющий вреда флоре и фауне океана, заливали в контейнеры взрывающиеся на определенной глубине и, таким образом, отследили потоки перемещения масс воды. Гольфстрим как существующее течение обнаружен не был.

Но, как оказалось, саморегулирующаяся система под названием Земля «сработала» и в этот раз. Течение по исследованиям «переползло» на 800 миль (1481 километр) восточнее зоны бывшего Гольфстрима. По снимкам со спутника температура этого течения увеличилась относительно Гольфстрима. Это значит, что увеличилась мощность испарения в теплой зоне над океаном. 

Небольшое отступление: основная часть людей полагает, что влажный воздух тяжелее сухого, но это не так. Молекулы кислорода О2, углекислого газа СО2 и азота N2 тяжелее, чем молекулы воды Н2О. 

Теперь приложим вышеуказанное к изменившейся ситуации

Из-за потепления нового течения, зона сильного испарения, серьезно влияющая на Россию, как и зона пониженного давления будет располагаться над океаном, западнее Европы, но гораздо ближе к Европе, чем ранее. Это приведет к движению в эту зону более сухого континентального воздуха из России. Ситуация будет усугубляться заменой не совсем сухого воздуха, холодным и сухим воздухом с северо-востока и востока страны. Это сформирует зону повышенного давления над европейской частью — антициклон.

Летом антициклон приносит жару, за ней влажность и, таким образом, становится неустойчивым. Зимой же ситуация будет обратной — ясные ночи, охлаждение воздуха, его осушение и увеличение плотности воздуха. Как следствие, увеличение давления.

Что несет нам такое изменение

Предположительно очень холодную градусов и малоснежную зиму на территории европейской части России, западную Европу засыплет снегом, а на границе фронтов будут бушевать ураганные ветры. В середине февраля 2011 года в Канаде вместо морозов наступила весна с температурой +10. Америка, судя по всему, тоже не останется без «пряника».Подтверждением тому недавние холода в Монтане, Южной Дакоте, Техасе, Арканзасе и Теннесси.


Транзитный автобус в Чикаго

P.S.
Гольфстрим уже останавливался. В 2004 году в х/ф «Послезавтра» рассмотрен вариант развития событий, основанный на реальных научных исследованиях.
Вполне возможно, что Гольфстрим так и нес бы свои воды к северу… если бы не человек.

Спутник NASA заглянул в глаз тайфуна

В приключенческой литературе часто встречается упоминание о «глазе бури», где тихо и спокойно, несмотря на то, что вокруг бушует стихия. «Глаз», на самом деле — это не выдумка писателей, а реальное явление, которое давно интересует ученых. Понятно, что забраться в глаз тайфуна — нетривиальная задача, но современные технологии позволяют избежать необходимости рисковать своей жизнью.

Спутник NASA, который называется CloudSat, провел детальное изучение тайфуна «Дельфин», который получил 4 категорию. Спутник смог изучить структуру тайфуна, включая и сам глаз. CloudSat, который можно назвать орбитальной обсерваторией, посылает импульсы излучения определенной частоты через атмосферу, улавливая затем отраженное излучение. 



У CloudSat есть «побратим», лаборатория RapidScat, которая используется для картографирования перемещения воздушных масс. Что касается CloudSat, то эта станция определяет количество воды или льда в облаках по силе отраженного сигнала.



В изображении, полученном после обработки командой специалистов, мы видим тайфун в разрезе, где видны мельчайшие детали этого атмосферного образования. Здесь также наложены инфракрасные снимки, которые сделал еще один спутник, японский MTSTAT. 

Вся эта система спутников сейчас помогает определять вероятность возникновения ураганов в различных регионах планеты, а также оценивать перемещение атмосферных слоев, плюс изучать возникающие явления, включая самые мощные ураганы. Сейчас ученые проводят активное изучение тропических ураганов, все результаты изучения вносятся в единую базу данных, которая будет служить для дальнейшей работы в этой сфере. Уже сейчас ученые могут предсказывать вероятность появления урагана в том либо ином регионе, и каждое новое исследование улучшает точность таких прогнозов.

No Such Thing as a Black Hole?

New theories question just about everything we thought we knew about nature’s bottomless pits.

By Corey S. Powell

The black hole from Interstellar is based on current theory, but that theory may not match reality.

Double Negative/Paramount/Warner Brothers

It takes a special kind of personality to argue passionately about the nature of objects that are hundreds of trillions of miles away, impossible to see and impossible even to describe using the known laws of physics. And yet, in the woolly world of modern astrophysics, such personalities are not in short supply. Lately they’ve engaged in a full-on debate about the nature of black holes, with some of the most fundamental notions about these strange objects suddenly under attack.

Despite what you saw in the movie Interstellar, black holes may not be black, and they may not be holes, either. Some theorists argue that the event horizon of a black hole — the boundary where light, matter and Matthew McConaughey vanish from our universe — is actually a brilliant, blistering inferno. Others propose that black holes are more properly described as “gray holes” with fuzzy, leaky outer boundaries. And a few agitators argue that the whole debate is off track because nature makes it impossible for black holes to form in the first place.

All of which might seem like so much theoretical navel-gazing, except that the debate over black holes is a proxy in a much grander battle. Right now, physics is split in two: Quantum mechanics describes small, fast phenomena while general relativity describes large, slow ones.

But in the extreme conditions around a black hole, time and space get so stretched that the two theories are forced to overlap. Making sense of what happens at that intersection is crucial for developing a “theory of everything”— a unified set of physical laws that describe the entire cosmos, from the Big Bang to a Big Mac.

As material (dust in this illustration) falls toward a black hole, it heats up and emits radiation. No one knows what happens next.

Richard Kail/Science Source

Fire in the Hole!

The trouble began, like so many confounding concepts in modern physics, in the brain of Stephen Hawking. Four decades ago, he realized that a black hole’s event horizon is inherently leaky; quantum processes allow a slow but steady flow of particles away from the black hole, a process now known as Hawking radiation. Given enough time, a black hole can evaporate completely. The idea of matter escaping the alleged point-of-no-return was surprising (it’s a central plot point in that other recent movie about black holes, the biographical The Theory of Everything), but the fate of information that falls into the black hole was what really troubled Hawking’s colleagues.

In the current view, which Hawking helped formulate, every event in the universe contains quantum information. When objects fall into a black hole, they take their information with them. That’s fine so long as the information stays in there, but if the black hole evaporates, things go all wonky. Coherent information goes in, but what comes out is just noise — Hawking radiation is 100 percent content-free.

Falling into a black hole seems to destroy a slice of reality, which just makes no sense. Hawking and other theorists began searching desperately for ways to prevent information from getting into the black hole in the first place, for ways to let it back out, or even for ways to make peace with the possibility that some information really can be lost forever.

In 2012, Joseph Polchinski of the University of California, Santa Barbara, offered a novel solution: As soon as an object gets pulled across the event horizon, it hits a firewall — an inferno so intense that it erases all the quantum information that object contained. No information gets lost because no information actually makes it through to the black hole’s interior. Polchinski pictures the event horizon as a kind of quantum eraser that neatly makes the information paradox go away.

If you think that sounds like a dodgy answer, rest assured that many of Polchinski’s colleagues (and even Polchinski himself) thought so, too — though perhaps not for the reasons you’d expect. The problem is that the rules of general relativity mandate physical continuity everywhere in the universe, even around a black hole. There should be no gap in the experience of, say, a doomed astronaut falling across the event horizon.

Or think of it this way: In relativity, the laws of physics look the same from all perspectives. The astronaut may get squished and stretched on the way in, but should still observe physics operating normally. The firewall, on the other hand, is about as abnormal and discontinuous as it gets. Now we’ve got a new paradox to deal with.

At this point, the story circles back to Hawking, who decided there must be a better way out. In a short paper presented last year, he suggests that the event horizon is not a defined boundary at all, but rather a zone of chaos where space and time are completely scrambled. No specific physical event occurs there — no Polchinski firewall — but any information passing through is rendered completely meaningless. Although Hawking dispenses with the traditional idea of the event horizon, he doesn’t dispute that black holes exist (as some breathless news stories claimed). Rather, he proposes that black holes are more like gray holes, defined by fuzzy edges that shed energy and garbled information.

My brain was starting to hurt, so I called on Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study, a leading black hole theorist and a neutral third party. He doesn’t think much of the firewall concept because it fails miserably at the key task of reconciling quantum mechanics and relativity. “It’s telling us how not to do it,” he says. Does he like the Hawking approach, then? “No. He did not propose anything concrete,” Maldacena replies tersely.

When you are trying to solve the riddle of the black hole, nobody gets special treatment, not even Stephen Hawking.

Event Horizon Denialists

Here is where the deniers come in: If black holes keep sprouting paradoxes, the thinking goes, maybe the problem lies with our understanding of the black hole itself. I first encountered black hole denialism during a cosmology conversation with Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina, who mentioned, as a casual aside, “Oh, I also proved black holes don’t exist.” Over the past year, she has written two papers (one published, one in press) laying down the gauntlet.

Even Stephen Hawking can’t quite explain how black holes actually work in our universe.

Karwai Tang/Getty Images

Mersini-Houghton is flipping around Hawking’s old ideas. He considered the radiation released by black holes after they form. She looks instead at the radiation generated by a massive, collapsing object before it ever crosses the event horizon. In Mersini-Houghton’s analysis, the resulting energy and opposing pressure become so intense that it stops the infall, reverses it, and flings everything outward. The result is “fireworks, not firewalls,” as she puts it. 

Event horizons, and the paradoxes that go with them, do not exist because the laws of physics guarantee that imploding stars self-destruct before they can become black holes. Cenalo Vaz, a physicist at the University of Cincinnati, recently came to similar conclusions by looking at outward pressure exerted by the structure of space around a collapsing object.

If black holes don’t exist, I ask Mersini-Houghton, what are those things at the hearts of most galaxies? Astronomers have found clear evidence of tiny but supermassive objects there, pulling on stars and stirring up hot disks of gas. Her answer cuts to the heart of one of the weirdest aspects of a black hole. As matter moves closer to the event horizon, time slows down from the perspective of an outside observer — that is, from the perspective of us and everyone else on the outside. At the horizon itself, time appears to us to come to a dead halt.

Even if matter never quite reaches the horizon, as in Mersini-Houghton’s theory, time could be stretched so drastically that a sudden rebound or explosion (from the collapsing object’s perspective) might look like a single, motionless moment (from ours).

Laura Mersini-Houghton thinks the laws of physics prevent black holes' forming.

Dan Sears/the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Put plainly: To a human observer, black holes do not exist because we can never see them form. In the traditional view, a star keeps collapsing past the event horizon down to a dot known as a singularity. In the dissenting view, the star collapses to the edge of the event horizon and then hovers there, or rebounds and explodes. But from our outside perspective, there is essentially no difference. All we see is a frozen frame when the star is infinitesimally close to the event horizon. An astronaut falling toward the star would know the answer instantly, but any message that he or she sent would take a near-infinite amount of time to reach us.

Nevertheless, because such an experience is possible, there must be a theory to describe it.

Maldacena, like most mainstream physicists, dismisses black hole denialism. The real way to make sense of all this black hole madness, he insists, is to address the underlying clashes between relativity and quantum physics. “A full theory of quantum gravity must resolve them,” he emphasizes. And that is, perhaps, the ultimate paradox of black holes: They embody our very deepest scientific understanding of how the universe works, and yet in many ways we do not understand them at all.

Scientists Identify the World’s First Warm-Blooded Fish

This opah was caught during an NOAA Fisheries survey off the California coast. (Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Southwest Fisheries Science Center)

By Carl Engelking

All fish are cold-blooded.

Just a week ago, that statement would have been true. But on Thursday, scientists announced they discovered the world’s first warm-blooded fish, the opah, forcing us to rethink some of the most basic biological concepts we learned back in elementary school.

Opah!

Opah, also known as moonfish, are rotund — almost comically so — predatory fish that hunt for prey in cold, dark waters up to 1,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. Although they aren’t fished commercially, opah are often accidentally caught in fishing nets. Hawaiians consider opah a sign of good luck, and the fish are often given away as a gesture of goodwill.

But opah have long intrigued scientists because they are such nimble hunters in deep water; most predatory fish move slowly at these depths and wait for meals to come to them rather than chase them down. Things got even stranger when Nicholas Wegner, a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, examined an opah gill sample.

All fish gills have two types of vessels: One set transports stale blood from the body to be oxygenated, and another set transports oxygenated blood back into the body. But in opah, blood traveling into the gills is warm. Opah generate heat by vigorously flapping their fins to swim, which also speeds up their metabolism.

NOAA Fisheries biologist Nick Wegner holds an opah caught during a research survey off the California coast.(NOAA Fisheries/Southwest Fisheries Science Center)

Wegner noticed that vessels carrying warm blood away from the body wrapped around vessels carrying cold, oxygenated blood into the body. The unique setup raises the temperature of inbound blood before it travels to organs and muscles. It’s a process called counter-current heat exchange. Automobile radiators regulate engine temperatures the same way, but in reverse. In this way, opah can maintain a body temperature that is roughly 41 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the water they swim in.

Wegner published his observations Thursday in the journal Science.

Big Advantage

Other top sea predators, such as tuna and sharks, have similar vascular systems to warm specific parts of their body, such as their eyes or swimming muscles, but they lose that heat when they dive deeper into cold water. As a result, they need to repeatedly reheat their bodies in warmer waters closer to the ocean surface.

Since opah have a heating system built into their gills, they don’t need to waste time seeking warmer waters. Instead, they can spend their time hunting in cold water and rely on their keen vision and speed, which is made possible by their warm blood.

Indeed, there may be millions of fish in the sea, but none — that we know of — like the opah.

These 9 Foods Are Some Of The Grossest Known To Man

Balut

This is basically an under developed duck embryo that is eaten like an oyster; raw and in one swallow… Yuck!

Rooster Testicles

An delicacy that is usually served in a soup or broth. Apparently they have a subtle flavour and an “interesting” soft texture.

Deep Fried Rat

This might be slightly more palatable if it wasn’t served whole. There isn’t a lot of meat on rat but it is perfectly fine to eat.

Fried Chicken Feet

The flavour of chickens feet is surprisingly good however you do need to be careful not to swallow the talons.

Cockroaches

As one of the most abundant “food” sources in many east asian locations, cockroaches can find their way into soups, curries, or deep firers.

Cobra Hearts

In Vietnam, cobra hearts are a real delicacy. The chef will remove the beating heart from a live cobra and serve it to you raw, still beating… The rest of the snake is then served.

Boiled Sheep’s Head

There are plenty of cultures out there that have a very similar animal head dish. Once you get over the grim presentation there is a lot of flavour in the meat, especially the tongue and cheek.

Fried Bat

There isn’t much more to say about this other than it is apparently similar to fried rat…

Three Lizard Liquor

It is unclear what exactly what lizards add to the rice wine they are infusing however it does provide a striking presentation.

15 Terrifying Prehistoric Animals We’re Glad We Never Had to Encounter

1. Jaekelopterus

ttufo

They were top predators in the Middle Devonian period, around 390 millions years ago. Three words, Giant Sea Scorpion. That’s right, this 8 foot long arthropod lived in the water and had pincher claws. Frankly, all of the eurypterids are scary as hell and this entire post could be exclusively about how terrifying these things look. Many of them look eerily similar to the face huggers from the Alien movie franchise; they are nightmare fuel. Jaekelopterus had segmented bodies with multiple specialized limbs, some with spikes. They had spring loaded claws to snatch up fish as they passed by, with the largest having an 18 inch spiked claw. Smaller sea scorpions are known to have crawled ashore to mate and even shed their outer skin. Imagine finding the molt of one of these monsters on the shore just before going swimming. Already with a sense of dread and paranoia, you distance yourself from the shore…and then you see a shadow in the murky waters.

2. Helicoprion

wild-facts

The mystery of this bizarre fish starts with a weird fossil and numerous attempts to figure out what it was and how to classify it. Helicoprion puzzled paleontologists and ichthyologists for over a century. The only remains of this creature, up until 2013, were from a fossilized whorl of teeth. While most scientists agreed that the teeth belonged to the lower jaw, that didn’t prevent the presumed location of the teeth from migrating around the body in sometimes fanciful arrangements that can be seen in numerous illustrations and reconstructions. With the later discovery of some portions of a jaw, the location of its buzzsaw-like teeth were finally determined to fill the lower jaw. Strangely, there were no upper teeth; so this creature could disgustingly gum and bite you at the same time. The jaw would close, rotating the teeth backwards, much like a circular saw blade. It probably fed on the soft bodies of squid and other cephalopods. The whorl of teeth was formed as they continuously grew outwards, creating a spiral as it aged; the teeth at the beginning of the whorl being small and gradually increasing in size toward the end. Another fish with an equally odd and terrifying face, Edestus, had offset scissor like jaws that protrude out of its face.This isn’t actually a member of the shark family – sharks have pretty much remained the same for the past 400 million years. The helicoprion was a survivor – having lived through the Carboniferous period, the Permian period, and even the largest extinction event in history (where 90% of life was wiped out), and went extinct in the early Triassic period.

3. Fasolasuchus

fondosescritoriogratis

This monstrous 33 ft cousin of crocodiles is one of the largest non-dinosaur carnivores to have ever lived. It’s hard to imagine anything hunting a dinosaur, but these were the fellas to do it. Fasolasuchus is t-rex Triassic, it can reach 10 meters of long.Il can attack large prey like the giant prosaupode lessemsaurus. Not being quick it hunts its prey by ambush. It is the tyrant of the Triassic!

4. Kelenken

The Kelenken was a species of giant flightless predatory birds of the extinct family phorusrhacid, or "terror birds" that lived in the Middle Miocene, some 15 million years ago, in Argentina. It is closely related to the Cariamids. Kelenken was the top predator of its area and hunted other predators too. Kelenken, rather than flying, it ran fast, running up to 35 mph (56.3 kph). With a skull 71.6 cm (28.2 inches) long, it had the largest head of any known bird. It is the largest species of phorusrhacid. Phorosrachids ruled South America some 15 million years ago. Dinosaurs had all died out, and these guys were the new thing about town. They moved on two legs, they were extremely agile, and they could have beaks as long as 18 inches.

5. Therizinosaurus

The killer claws of raptors are nothing compared to those of the therizinosaurus. The 33 ft animals had claws as long as 3 ft. Despite this, the animal was actually mostly herbivorous, so those claws were used for weeding more than anything. Still badass. Therizinosaurus is a genus of very large therizinosaurid dinosaurs that lived during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Asia. It contains a single species, Therizinosaurus cheloniformis, known from the fossiliferous Nemegt Formation. The first remains of Therizinosaurus were found in 1948 by a Mongolian field expedition in the Gobi Desert and later described by Evgeny Maleev in 1954. The genus is only known from a few bones, including gigantic manual unguals (claw bones), from which it gets its name, and additional findings comprising fore and hindlimb elements that were discovered from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Therizinosaurus was a colossal therizinosaurid that could grow up to 9–10 m (30–33 ft) long and 4–5 m (13–16 ft) tall, and weigh possibly over 5 t (5.5 short tons). Like other therizinosaurids, it would have been a slow-moving, long-necked, high browser equipped with a rhamphotheca (horny beak) and a wide torso for food processing. Its forelimbs were particularly robust and had three fingers that bore unguals which, unlike other relatives, were very stiffened, elongated, and only had significant curvatures at the tips. Therizinosaurus had the longest known manual unguals of any land animal, reaching above 50 cm (20 in) in length. Its hindlimbs ended in four functionally weight-bearing toes differing from other theropod groups in which the first toe was reduced to a dewclaw and also resembling the very distantly related sauropodomorphs.

6. Sauroniops

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These giants stood tall at a whopping 42 ft. They lived in Morocco around 100 million years ago, and they’re absolutely terrifying!

7. Deinosuchus

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Like its cousin the fasolasuchus, the deinosuchus were crocodiles who hunted dinosaurs. What a world. 42 ft long and always ready to strike, the Texas natives were around, kicking ass, around 80 million years ago.

8. Dunkleosteus

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 This 33 foot long armored fish from the Devonian era lacked teeth, but its jaw contained razor sharp protrusions of bone that it could use to pierce and cut through its prey. These bones grew continuously and as they did, the edges rubbed together with those of the opposing jaw, acting like self sharpening shears. This would ensure the “fangs” were always ready to chomp into armored prey like arthropods, ammonites and other fish. This four ton monster fish patrolled inshore waters and could snatch prey up by opening and closing its jaws within 50-60 milliseconds.The dunkleosteus, with its guillotine-like mouth actually had no teeth. Those blades you see were actually a part of their skull. They were over 30 ft, and hunted sharks for about 20 million years.

9. Livyatan

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This extinct whale was named both for the monstrous sea creature Leviathan from the old-testament that “…when he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing” and for Herman Melville, the author of the novel Moby Dick, a tale of an accursed white whale that terrorized Captain Ahab and eventually brought about his death and the destruction of his ship and crew. This is an amazing namesake to live up to. Livyatan melvillei is related to modern sperm whales like Moby Dick and lived during the Miocene epoch. It was 44-57 feet long and had a 10 foot long skull that housed forty 14.5" long teeth. These are the longest teeth used for feeding known from any animal, extinct or alive. They fed on large prey at the surface of the water including other whales. This whale likely became so large because it was competing directly with megalodon for food. Named after Leviathan, these enormous whales were fearsome shark hunters. With teeth up to 1 ft long they were ruthless, unstoppable beasts. They were an outrageous 57 ft long. They conquered the megalodons, who ruled the sea for millions of years. They were badass.

10. Mosasaurus

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Mosasaurus is a species of large marine reptile from the Late Cretaceous period, around 83-66 million years ago. One of the largest of its genus, measuring nearly 18 meters long and weighing 10 tons, Mosasaurus gave its name to a group of carnivorous marine lizards - the Mosasaurs. The Late Cretaceous period may very well have been the most dangerous for ocean dwellers, and its precisely because of these guys. Mosasaurus was one of the largest aquatic predators that had ever evolved, at over 60 ft long. They didn’t just hunt sharks, they hunted pretty much anything they could lock their jaws on (and they could pretty much lock their jaws on anything)

11. Deinotherium

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These are the largest prehistoric relative of modern-day elephants. They arrived in the Middle Miocene and survived until the Early Pleistocene, changing very little along the way. Their remains were discovered at major hominid excavation sites near Lake Turkana, Kenya. They’re also known as “hoe tuskers”.

12. Epidexipteryx

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These are the earliest known representation of ornamental feathers in the fossil record. They were a genus of small paravian dinosaurs.

13. Hallucigenia

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These were less than 3 millimeters long, and had bulbous round heads connected to their cylindrical trunk. It was initially thought to walk on its spines, but it was later discovered that its tentacles were feet.

14. Tanystropheus

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Tanystropheus is the Greek word for “long necked one”. They were 20 feet long, with a narrow neck that was often longer than its body and neck combined. They emerged in the Middle Triassic period.

15. Opabinia

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These are one of the most bizarre creatures to have ever existed. They had 30 legs, 30 flippers, a nose like an elephant’s trunk, and a lobster-like claw. There were no signs that they had jaws, so they presumably fed on small, soft creatures.