
Tsunami carried a million sea creatures from Japan to US west coast - kafkaesq
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/29/tsunami-carried-million-sea-creatures-from-japan-to-us-west-coast
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Jyaif
Waves are oscillations, and thus do not move matter over long distances. Am I
missing something?

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andresgottlieb
You're right, but the tsunami released a lot of debris to the sea near Japan,
and the sea creatures where slowly transported for thousands of miles, on that
debris:

"Between June 2012 and February this year 289 Japanese species attached to 600
pieces of debris washed up on beaches in the states of Washington, Oregon,
California, Alaska and Hawaii, as well as in the Canadian province of British
Columbia, according to the study."

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Jyaif
Maybe I should RTFA instead of the (misleading) headline :-)

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bognition
This is really interesting because many of these new species will be
considered invasive species, however, because they arrived by natural means
should the invasion be stopped?

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craftyguy
Since they came over almost entirely an manmade debris that had been 'freed'
by the tsunami, I think it can be argued that this was not entirely natural.
If Japan was unpopulated, we'd get a few logs that would made the journey, not
complete manmade structures which could house many different species at once.

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Spakman
I really have difficultly seeing how this could be considered anything other
than natural. We, our actions and our impacts on the rest of the environment
are, after all, born of the very same nature.

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craftyguy
Well, by that loose definition, there is absolutely nothing that is not
'natural.'

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Spakman
Yeah, I agree with that!

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popcorncolonel
"Natural" is defined as: existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused
by humankind.

So by definition, there are things that are natural, such as other galaxies,
and all things a million years ago.

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aorloff
Things that are natural : all galaxies, including ours.

