Invasive species ride tsunami debris to US shore

[tawadi]

When a floating dock the size of a boxcar washed up on a sandy beach in Oregon, beachcombers got excited because it was the largest piece of debris from last year's tsunami in Japan to show up on the West Coast.

But scientists worried it represented a whole new way for invasive species of seaweed, crabs and other marine organisms to break the earth's natural barriers and further muck up the West Coast's marine environments. And more invasive species could be hitching rides on tsunami debris expected to arrive in the weeks and months to come.

"We know extinctions occur with invasions," said John Chapman, assistant professor of fisheries and invasive species specialist at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center. "This is like arrows shot into the dark. Some of them could hit a mark."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gO0ANMdbypLLtU9rOMHmySrhHM4A?docId=e9e1750f535c44928db07657005f01c1

[Warpy]

1. It seems the earthquake and tsunami are the earth's way of breaking

its own natural barriers and it's quite likely that's how species have been distributed far and wide before now.

[pipoman]

5. I agree

Quite natural redistribution it seems to me..

[Politicalboi]

2. This was predicted about the

Debris. Why couldn't they have done something before it reached the shores? Why are we basically ignoring the danger of the next melt down in Japan. It could mean our deaths too.

[quaker bill]

3. The ocean is really big

it is hard to find and collect things there.

[pipoman]

4. If I told you

I put a red box car with a white X in clear view on the plains of Nebraska it would likely take you weeks or longer to find from an airplane. Thousands of pieces of debris covering an area 16 times the size of the US is impossible.