It’s not every day that you need to talk to one of the world’s leading experts on goose barnacles of the Indian Ocean, but today is one of those days, so I considered myself very fortunate to get in touch with Charles Griffiths, an emeritus professor of marine biology at the University of Cape Town and author of the seminal paper “South African pelagic goose barnacles (Cirripedia, Thoracica): substratum preferences and influence of plastic debris on abundance and distribution.”
I reached out to Dr Griffiths by email and he graciously answered my questions about the sea life found growing on the Reunion flaperon after I sent him a more detailed version of the picture above.
Is it possible to identify the species of barnacle growing on the debris?
In this case it is possible to identify this as being Lepas anserifera striata on the basis of the small row of pits across the shell, which is characteristic of that subspecies.
Can this tell us anything about where the debris might have been floating?
This is not much clue as the species has a wide global distribution in tropical and subtropical seas.
Can you say in very rough terms how long it takes the barnacles to reach this stage of growth?
I cannot accurately gauge the sizes of the largest specimens from the image but goose barnacles grow spectacularly fast e.g. 21 mm head length ( i.e. Without the supporting stalk) in 21 days cited in one paper I have at hand. I have seen very large barnacles (as long as my finger) growing on a cable known to have only been in the water for 6 weeks!
UPDATE: To clarify a point raised by commenters, I asked Dr Griffiths a follow-up question:
Is it true that barnacles can’t survive in the open ocean? Is it possible for a piece of debris floating far out to see be colonized by Lepas anserifera, or would it need to be in a coastal environment?
No, that is not the case. These goose barnacles are in fact characteristically oceanic beasts and only occur in floating objects in the open sea. Reaching the coast is in fact a death warrant for them and any that get washed up die! Interestingly they seem to know whether an object is floating, so for example are common on kelp that is uprooted and floating but never occur on the same kelp when it is attached.
Can you tell whether the barnacles in that picture are alive or dead? If alive, how long can they live after being washed up?
If you find a washed up item that is fresh (same day) the barnacles will still be opening their shells and waving around their cirri (legs) to try to feed. Obviously in a still image cannot see this. However I can see the cirri projecting from some animals. These would rot away and drop off in a few days in a tropical climate, so this wreckage has only been washed up a couple of days at most. Also crabs and other scavengers love to eat goose barnacles and will clean off most within a couple of days. There is no evidence of feeding damage or headless stalks here, so that suggests to me this wreckage was collected and photographed within a day or two of stranding.
What caught my attention on first glance two weeks ago was, that i wondered why the barnacles were so small sized. Together with the professors explanation and since we know, that it emerged mid May the species of barnacles seem to have colonized the flaperon in the coastal waters of Reunion Island. Also the professor mentioned, that the clearly identifiable species lives in tropical and subtropical waters, which are not to be found at 34S 94E . Other posters did explain, that barnacles do not survive in the open sea.
So altogether: the flaperon was not colonized by barnacles where the impact was and was only colonized when it hit the coastal waters of Reunion. This leaves the uncertainty whether it traveled through the ocean at all.
Haven’t the Barnacles run the Circumlocution Office forever?
@Jeff, thanks for getting in touch with Prof. Griffith. His unofficial expertise matches with Erik van Sebille’s assessment that the barnacles might not tell us anything about the piece’s drift route because the species of barnacles is spread too widely.
And now it looks like the barnacles might not even tell us anything reliable about how long the flap has been in the water.
@littlefoot, rather, it might give us an upper bound on how long the flaperon has been in the water. And that upper bound might be rather low. I’m sure this is one of the issues the French are looking at.
Jeff, wondering if there was a transcription error in your interview. A Google search of “Lepas anserifera striata” showed literally not one result while “Lepas anatifera striata” did: anaSERIFera vs anaTIFera. The latter however, doesn’t look like the creature in your close up photo.
@Scott
description name is ok. no mistake
“Lepas anserifera is a species of goose barnacle or stalked barnacle in the family Lepadidae. ”
striata is one of ca 300 subspecies
@CosmicAcademy
Yes, thanks, CosmicAcademy. Saw that reference but thought it strange that I could find information on the genus/species/subspecies of one yet not a single reference to the other in what I’ve come to think of as the universal knowledge machine. Mr Griffiths knows his barnacles better than Google, I suppose…
And Just to be clear, when I wrote “strange,” above, there was no tin foil involved, and I in no way meant it as a synonym for conspiratorial…
So it may have been in the water for a whole month?
@Matty:
“so it may have been in the water for a whole month”.
Or you could say:
“so it may have been in the water for not more than a month”. 😉
I have to say I’m disappointed with the CSI value of those barnacles. I thought they might be able to tell more. They are certainly no obstacle for a planter with a month at his disposal. The technical aspects are more challenging, I guess.
Way to go Jeff! Contacting Barnacle Bill yourself!
I wonder if it made a barnacle-less trip through the ocean from the crash site and then the barnacles leeched on shortly after hitting Reunion Island. It would seem it is from MH370 but appearances are deceiving so let’s see what the French determine.
CosmicAcadamy: “(other posters explained) barnacles do not survive in the open sea”
Jeff: “(barnacle size) might give an upper bound on how long the flaperon has been in the water”
Those two statements are mutually incompatible.
I wonder if it is possible to do a chemical analysis of these barnacles to determine if they grew in the seawater around Reunion or if elsewhere ( trace chemicals and pollutant levels) ?
@Brock
Survival of barnacles in open sea
Well, we do see living barnacles attached to ships, flotsam or whales in the open seas. Therefore i should be more precise.
Barnacles have a complex life cycle. Most time of their life they are fix attached to something and the mass of barnacles is usually attached to rocks, which you dont find in the open sea but in coastal waters. For reproduction they produce larvae and in the cyprid larval stage only they are mobile as part of the planton and have to find something to attach to. So in this stage of their life cycle they cannot survive in the open seas, because there is not much to attach to. If they find drifting timber, that would make a diference. But where would the larvae come from in the open seas?
So, the chance of the flaperon to get a colony of Lepas ansifera while drifting from 34S 94E to Reunion is extremely small until it hits some coastal waters. At the same time it might not be possible to outrule a long drift of the piece before being colonized by barnacles.
@CosmicAcademy, thank for explaining the barnacle life cycle.
Since according to the official SIO scenario the flap would have starts it’s drift in the open ocean where no barnacles or barnacle larvae swim around the flap has probably gotten it’s colony while it was near or at the beach of La Reunion. Which must’ve been at least for a month.
But the barnacles can’t tell how mi h time the piece spent else.
@CosmicAcademy, I followed up with Dr Griffiths and according to him you are incorrect. I’ve updated the post to clarify this point.
@Jeff: with that clarification, this is potentially huge.
“I cannot accurately gauge the sizes of the largest specimens from the image”. Sounds to me like the gauntlet has been thrown down to the internet sleuthing community…
Also, it would be nice if more than one marine biologist signed on to the statement, “goose barnacles grow spectacularly fast e.g. 21 mm head length…in 21 days”.
@All: I’d been hard at work on a paper questioning the compatibility of Réunion island with the current search area (given “only” 16-17 months adrift). If Jeff’s research is going where it looks to be going, I may be able to take a break…
@ everyone
Hello! I have a few questions….
I hate to refer to myself as a “lurker”, but I guess that is what I have been doing on Jeff’s site for over a year now. The reason I have not actively participated is that I have no expertise to offer, but am insanely curious. I do not pretend to understand all of the technical aviation details, but I have read most, if not all posts and tried to Google what I didn’t understand in order to gain insight.
As such, I preemtively ask for forgiveness if I cover known territory when I ask the following questions…I really have tried to read it all but may have missed someone’s important comment(s).
So….question #1 … What is the deal with the flaperon? Does it normally take this long to confirm? The media seem to be running with the story that it IS from the missing plane and I cannot find any information regarding the French side of the investigation. Some news sites have stated that the perceived difference between the French & Malaysian opinions lies in the translation: in other words, both parties are basically in agreement that the part is from mh370 and that the problem is a slight difference in translating the French statement.
Other sites have, of course, stated that there is a major difference of opinion.
While some sites report only the facts, the facts don’t seem to add up.
For example, The International Business Times interviewed Zaaim Redha, who claimed that the state of the flaperon would indicate that the plane would have had to land on the surface of the ocean and float for a while before it finally sunk, intact, to the bottom. He states that “Its appearance indicates that it was not violently torn off from the aircraft’s main body…it does seem that it got detached pretty nicely at its edges.” Is this even possible given what we know about the technical details?
http://www.ibtimes.com/flight-mh370-update-flaperon-shows-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-intact-indian-2049930
Question #2…. who gave Najib Razak that $700 million dollars? Was it from Arab princes? Are they still investigating this?
Question #3….Did the copilot’s phone make a connection with a cell tower or not?
Question #4….Are all air crash investigations this secretive? To me, it seems pretty unusual. Normally news agencies may initially have a few different angles but eventually they all tie together to tell the same story.
In the case of mh370, it seems that the more information that comes out, the more disparate the stories become.
My own personal opinion: I still back Jeff’s theory up about the Spoof. Russia and China are making a power play and they haven’t shown their hand. The world knows that the only way to win against the U.S. is through asymmetrical warfare or by using new techniques that exploit weaknesses we have yet to even think about. Russia and China could be secret state supporters of terrorism. Why not? It is a brilliant way to bring the U.S. down without signing your name on the bomb. This could have been a plan that somehow failed and the plane ended up in the SIO.
I have never thought that it went South. Why would it?
I have never “bought” the suicide theory,either. The argument is that a person must be irrational or insane to commit suicide, so why wouldn’t they just randomly evade radar and then contemplate about it for 6 more hours while flying out to the middle of nowhere (an equally irrational act)? Whoever promotes this theory may know a lot about satellites and planes but maybe not so much about human beings.
Sorry for the long post…
Additional reading.
You might try Diana Jones.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228483614_The_biogeography_of_Western_Australian_shallow-water_barnacles
:Don
@Jeff, thanks for this important new info.
If I interpret this correctly, the flap can’t have been sitting in that beach since May as has been speculated. The piece must’ve been a relatively fresh arrival since a lot of the barnacles seem to be intact. Shouldn’t they all have been eaten by now?
Do I interpret this correctly now?
Maybe the barnacles can tell a story after all. Or they can at least debunk a few things.
I agree with Brock: a few more marine scientists should take a look and giver their expertise.
@jeff
thanks for going back to professor Griffiths on that. He sure knows his subject very well.
I am wondering though, why all publicly accessible sources give the impression that goose barnacles live on rocks in tidal waters like in the image here
http://omp.gso.uri.edu/ompweb/doee/science/biology/b.htm
this is also consistent with the “shallow waters” in the essay above mentioned by GuardedDon. Also i know, its a rewarding business in northern Spain to harvest coastal Barnacles.
for the particular species “anserifera” oth i do find information that confirms prof. Griffiths. Maybe there is some specific pattern for this.
So i am a bit stuck what to make of it.
But if Prof. Griffiths definitely states, that the flaperon would be colonized while drifting in the open seas, we should find out about the age of those beasts in question pretty quick. If its too young we might have a big issue.
A while ago I asked if the flaperon could have been submerged for a time, breaking off and refloating rather than breaking off during impact.
It appears I am not alone:
http://www.ibtimes.com/flight-mh370-update-flaperon-shows-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-intact-indian-2049930
Along the same lines, is it possible that the trailing edge damage is the result of pressure at depths? It is slightly counterintuitive, I admit – that a sealed chamber of the flaperon was crushed, yet enough other sealed chambers survived to refloat it.
Nevertheless, perhaps we’re looking at post-impact damage and the reason we have no debris is that little of it has broken off.
@littlefoot,
I’m trying to confirm, but I believe the flaperon was spotted by locals floating OFFSHORE in May. I also seem to recall it was still floating when it was officially recovered in July. The pictures leave the impression it was up on dry land, but I believe they fished it out of the drink.
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228483614_The_biogeography_of_Western_Australian_shallow-water_barnacles point to anatifera striata, not anserifera striata
@Cosmic Academy, my sister sent me a statement from the portal of the University of Cologne. They have apparently their very own barnacle experts. They confirm Prof. Griffiths’ statement about the attachment while objects are floating in the open ocean. But they also say that it would be very important to identify the species very exactly because there are differences between different regions.
La Reunion local says the flaperon washed ashore months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkKVNhzVCtU
@JS
The Bernama news agency source is more informative:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/ge/newsperspectives.php?id=1160802
Local sat on “that object” in May. But it’s not clear what object he’s talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNTlC9_JeI0
“Nicholas Ferrier … saw the wing part that washed up on Wednesday – although in May, the barnacles encrusting its side were still alive. By the time it washed ashore again this week, the crustaceans were dead.
“Like the seat, I didn’t know what it was,” he said. “I sat on it. I was fishing for macabi [bonefish] and used it as a table. I really didn’t pay it much attention – until I saw it on the news.”
His story is backed by a local woman, named Isabelle, who spotted the same object while walking on the beach in May, accompanied by her 10-year-old son. “It was the beginning of the holidays – around May 10,” she told a news website. “I was walking with my son, Krishna. Then from a rock on which we were standing, he saw an object and shouted: ‘Mum, that looks like the wing of a plane.”‘ ”
http://www.smh.com.au/world/plane-door-washes-up-on-reunion-island-20150802-gipugz.html
@Michael R, thanks for the article with detailed statements from eyewitnesses.
Interesting the statement about the barnacles having been alive in May while they were dead when the witness saw the piece again. That would be expected of course.
@Michael R,
The Telegraph source:
Harriet Alexander
MH370: ”Plane seat” found washed up on Reunion Island three months ago
01 Aug 2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/mh370/11777921/MH370-Plane-seat-found-washed-up-on-Reunion-Island-three-months-ago.html
“He also saw the wing which washed up on Wednesday – although in May, the barnacles encrusting its side were still alive. By the time it washed ashore again this week, the crustaceans were dead.”
http://english.astroawani.com/malaysia-news/jacc-confirms-flaperon-mh370-69568
It took them 6 days to go from “…strong possibility….”
to “…..in all probability…”????
@everyone
For now ignore that link, I may have jumped the gun on this
I’d suggest the barnacles still have some talking to do.
Both Jones’ and Griffiths’ papers are the result of investigation in their local, littoral environments.
Jones categorises all Lepas genera as pelagic and found in both temperate and tropical waters around western Australia.
Even the State of Alaska describes Lepas spp (gooseneck barnacles) as “native, filter-feeding crustaceans that live attached to floating objects in the open ocean. They do not occur on rocks in the intertidal zone.” Native, as in common to both sides of the Pacific, and of a size range: 4 to 90cm, including stalk.
They develop more slowly in cooler waters (<18ºC).
So, what secrets does open water hold for the barnacles?
:Don
@Susie, I noticed the wording, too.
While all this might just be semantics I really would like to know a bit more.
What prevents them from saying they are certain that the flap belonged to mh370?
For the record: I would be very surprised if the flap doesn’t belong to mh370. But after all this waffling I’d like it a bit more precisely. Have they matched the maintenance records or not?
Some interesting sonar images from the SIO that could be from MH370. We might have to wait for better weather to know for sure.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3186523/Sonar-images-deep-Indian-Ocean-led-Australian-search-team-believe-wreckage-Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-t-NOVEMBER-bad-weather.html
@Susie Crowe,
It appeared only on Malaysian papers. They cite Bernama the official news agency:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v8/bu/newsbusiness.php?id=1161094
Bernama gives no source but the JACC did write this sentence in its today operational search update. Malaysian hackers at work or political pressure?
The “new” sonar images were presented in the JACC report back in March 2015 and dismissed as not from an aircraft. Why does this story re-surface today with incorrect facts? Can reporting on this incident get any worse?
http://jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/opsearch-update-20150305.aspx
On 29 July 2015 aircraft wreckage was found on La Réunion. Subsequent examination indicates that in all probability the wreckage, a wing part known as a flaperon, was from MH370. Any additional debris that is found will be examined to determine if it too can be linked to MH370.
http://jacc.gov.au/families/operational_reports/files/MH370_Operational_Search_Update_20150812_EN.pdf
@Phil Web, thanks for the link.
Unfortunately it’s devoid of any new information and just an update of what JACC has said already on August 6.
I cannot help thinking that there is no coincidence in the timing of this announcement and the Daily Mail article about very promising debris at the sea bed – which thankfully has been debunked by Victor swiftly.
T
@Victor: The ATSB appears to have “repackaged” this (stale, I agree) imagery in their “MH370: Sonar Contacts Fact Sheet – 29 July 2015” (MH370/Resources/Fact Sheets/):
http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/2015/mh370-sonar-contacts.aspx
So I think the ATSB is on the hook for the suspicious TIMING, but the Daily Fail remains responsible for the suspicious INACCURACY. I haven’t yet read the article, but saw somewhere that it had mixed up ATSB categories 1 (serious) & 3 (unlikely)…?(…!)
@VictorI
The reporting is frustrating to be sure. One thing I can congratulate the French on is that there have been zero leaks about what is going on in their lab despite the multi-national participation. They must have threatened everyone involved with very severe repercussions.
@Brock McEwen: I included the link to the Daily Mail article in my first post on this subject, if you are interested. And yes, the Daily Mail confused Category 1 (high interest) with Category 3 (unlikely). The JACC has classified the images as Category 3.
Even more perplexing is the quote attributed to Steve Duffield, “Managing Director of Fugro Survey Based in WA”, who “told Daily Mail Australia that these pictures taken by his company and Malaysia’s Go Phoenix operation could provide the next breakthrough in the investigation.”
I sent an email to Mr. Duffield asking for clarification, as he is quoted as putting much more value on these images than the JACC.
@DennisW: There are no leaks from the French investigators other than the public statement from the prosecutor-judge. But there was a big leak from the NTSB/Boeing claiming the maintenance records for the right flaperon of 9M-MRO don’t exactly match the recovered part. If the differences are insignificant or explicable, why leak such information? If the differences are significant, why not follow with more information? The US is cryptically leaking information from unnamed sources rather than providing clarity.
Bad reporting, unnamed sources, misinformation, disinformation…frankly I am beyond the point of being fed up.
Okay, just for fun, I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat for a minute (acknowledging from the outset that these questions are ridiculous). But just for grins… I wonder if all the flaperons from MH17 were recovered and/or accounted for by the Dutch investigators… and I also wonder if the maintenance records for MH17 would match the recovered flaperon any better. (Actually, even with my tinfoil hat on, this is pretty silly. If MH370 was stolen instead of crashed, and someone wanted to plant false evidence in the ocean hoping someone would find it and be mislead, why not throw in parts from the actual MH370 plane? If you stole the plane, then you have access to the plane, and you could strip parts off of the real thing for just such a purpose. Or, even more simply, the conspirators could just buy spare Boeing parts for a 777 if they wanted to plant decoys). Still, the fact that Jeff’s original article suggested Russian involvement in a “crazy conspiracy theory” makes the notion that Russia might also have had access to debris from a different 777 just too juicy to ignore, at least if you’re wearing your tinfoil hat. Especially since the flaperon they found doesn’t seem to have a serial number.
Okay, tinfoil hat off now. I really do think they’re finally getting close to finding that plane, and maybe finally getting some real answers. Thank God.
Victor – thanks for posting. It looks like a publicity move, are they afraid of the funding being cut? I also see that the determination of cat2 through to cat3 seems almost subjective in any case? It’s a circus out there.
I can only heartily agree with Victor. Today was a low point of bad reporting, misinformation and outright disinformation.
Meanwhile the Malysian newspaper Daily Star announced that yesterday Malaysian experts have been heading to the Maldives in order to inspect “debris” and they had “an understanding with the Maldivian authorities that it was probably debris from mh370” and therefore they’d have the right to take the debris to Malaysia for further inspection.
It’s fairly clear what’s happening here: the Malaysians want to establish early on that they can take the debris home – and the Maldivians are glad to be rid of it. If the debris is really most likely from mh370 probably doesn’t figure prominently in this “understanding”. And I haven’t even asked why all this Maldivian debris surfaces into the public view now, just after the first debris turned up at La Reunion. I wonder if we will ever hear more about that debris once it has been whisked away to Malaysia.
Another truly baffling bone of contention is the now a few times recycled but unconfirmed story of the captain’s simulater and his purported test runs into the SIO. I said recycled, because the story was first reported by English newspapers in June last year. In February and again in May this year an Australian B777 pilot – Byron Bailey – took up the story again and added the new detail that the early search area was actually shifted because of the information on the simulator. And recently Miles O’Brien picked up the story again as well. All reporters claim to have more than one credible source within the FBI who insist to this day that the information is absolutely true and pretty damning. But not one of these sources is willing to go on record in order to debunk or confirm it and save us from endless speculations. From those reporters only one – Byron Bailey – seemed to grasp the enorm importance of this story and went public with his conclusions – which may be right or wrong. Who know?. Miles O’Brien said he did understand the importance but apparently isn’t inclined to follow up – even though his sources still claim that the story is true. Others just decided nonchalantly to let it go even if it was true and chalk it up as innocent exercises of a true aviation geek. Never know when a fuel exhaust flight route into the SIO will come in handy, ya know. Unfortunately none of the sources spelled out where this flight route ended. And apart from a few statements last summer which clearly contradict this story by saying that nothing suspicious whatsoever has been found on the simulator, the US have been silent. They neither debunked nor indorsed it. The journalists who picked up the story at different times have no explanation for these contradictions nor for the apparent nonsensical issues: why would Malaysia and the US for that matter hold back such a story which apparently offers a practical solution of the mystery for all involved factions.
Same as with the CNN story about the copilot’s cellphone having made contact with a tower when the plane was flying over the Strait. CNN claimed that their source was a high ranking US official. While subsequent analyses of the plane’s path made it rather unlikely that this cellphone connection ever happened, the public never got a confirmation or denial of this rather important story which at the time was placed quite prominently in the world wide news.
I listed just a few but rather important stories which highlight that the Malaysians haven’t been the only ones engaging in baffling obfuscation and peddling of misinformation. Malaysia did it just more blatantly and in-you-face. Brock has his own list of grievances laid down in his article “Investigating the Investigators”.
There may be honorable reasons for all of this. But we are left questioning if there’s anything left we can blindly trust in. So far most of us choose to ignore stories and rumors which don’t seem to fit our pet theories while picking up those so called facts which support our ideas. But I have to confess that my trust rapidly dwindles to the very nihilistic point where I believe for sure only that a plane with the flight number mh370 left KLIA and got lost somewhere around IGARI. And apart from one flap we’ve never seen or heard from that plane again.
I’m exaggerating wildy of course. But the interested public and the nok have been in a hermeneutic hell for almost one and a half year, where apparently every document and data and every object which has passed through human hands is potentially subject of intense mistrust and many of us believe all kinds of manipulations might’ve been going on because of all the contradictions and outright lies which have surfaced along the way.
@Matty – Perth: Steve Duffield from Fugro called me while I was away from my desk and left a message. He said that he was terribly misquoted by the Daily Mail, which he expects will be issuing a retraction today. The JACC report is correct, as we all assumed.
Victor – That’d be right. Already a bushfire though – been picked up in the media outlets here. The current MH370 whirlpool is about as bad as March 2014.
Off-topic post for me.
Last night I was on a red-eye flight on a B-777. At the 7:40 mark I took note of the fact that this was the time of the 7th ping ring for MH370. Hard to imagine what it must have been like. My flight continued on uneventfully. Will never take “uneventfully” for granted again.
@Victori, Matty – Perth, littlefoot, Brock McEwen, et al
At risk of relegating myself to the site cheerleader. This, why didn’t it just fly straight to Beijing mystery is enormously privileged by your participation. Don’t let the frustration stifle your determination., people all over the world count on you to get it right
@littlefoot The moral of your story is “take nothing for granted:” I can’t count the number of times I have been burned over the years by believing what I was told without double checking.
A.C. Clarke’s story “Superiority” is sometimes cited as an example of this rule: http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clarke_Superiority.html
The US press is inaccurate, has an agenda, and sometimes downright lies? This should come as no surprise to anyone. They also don’t generally understand science and do a bad job of reporting science related stories.
Others, e.g., Malaysia, Russia, etc., are worse.