English Channel

The English Channel, also called simply the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France and links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busiest shipping area in the world.
It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some .
The Channel was a key factor in Britain becoming a naval superpower and has been utilised by Britain as a natural defence mechanism through which they halted many invasions, such as the Napoleonic Wars and those of Adolf Hitler in World War II.
The population around the English Channel is predominantly located on the English coast and the major languages spoken in this region are French and English.
Name.
Known colloquially to the English as the "Narrow Sea", until the 18th century, the English Channel had no fixed name either in English or in French. It was never defined as a political border, and the names were more or less descriptive. It was not considered as the property of a nation. Before the development of the modern nations, British scholars very often referred to it as "Gaulish" () and French scholars as "British" or "English". The name "English Channel" has been widely used since the early 18th century, possibly originating from the designation in Dutch sea maps from the 16th century onwards. In modern Dutch, however, it is known as (with no reference to the word "English"). Later, it has also been known as the "British Channel" or the "British Sea". It was called by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy. The same name is used on an Italian map of about 1450, which gives the alternative name of —possibly the first recorded use of the "Channel" designation. The Anglo-Saxon texts often call it ('South Sea') as opposed to ('North Sea' = Bristol Channel). The common word "channel" was first recorded in Middle English in the 13th century and was borrowed from Old French , variant form of 'canal'.
The French name has been used since at least the 17th century. The name is usually said to refer to the Channel's sleeve () shape. Folk etymology has derived it from a Celtic word meaning 'channel' that is also the source of the name for the Minch in Scotland, but this name is not attested before the 17th century, and French and British sources of that time are perfectly clear about its etymology. The name in French has been directly adapted in other Romance languages (, , , ). The name in Breton () means 'Breton Sea', and its Cornish name () means 'British Sea'.
Nature.
Geography.
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows:
The IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as "a line joining the Walde Lighthouse (France, 1°55'E) and Leathercoat Point (England, 51°10'N)". The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais (), and Leathercoat Point is at the north end of St Margaret's Bay, Kent ().
The Strait of Dover (), at the Channel's eastern end, is its narrowest point, while its widest point lies between Lyme Bay and the Gulf of Saint Malo, near its midpoint. It is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the former land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries. It reaches a maximum depth of in the submerged valley of Hurd's Deep, west-northwest of Guernsey.
The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is frequently referred to as the "Bay of the Seine" ().
There are several major islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast, and the Channel Islands, British Crown dependencies off the coast of France. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is deeply indented; several small islands close to the coastline, including Chausey and Mont Saint-Michel, are within French jurisdiction. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a small parallel strait known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel.
The Channel acts as a funnel that amplifies the tidal range from less than a metre as observed at sea to more than 6 metres as observed in the Channel Islands, the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula and the north coast of Brittany. The time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance.
In the UK Shipping Forecast the Channel is divided into the following areas, from the east:
Geological origins.
The Channel is of geologically recent origin, having been dry land for most of the Pleistocene period. Before the Devensian glaciation (the most recent glacial period, which ended around 10,000 years ago), Britain and Ireland were part of continental Europe, linked by an unbroken Weald–Artois anticline, a ridge that acted as a natural dam holding back a large freshwater pro-glacial lake in the Doggerland region, now submerged under the North Sea. During this period the North Sea and almost all of the British Isles were covered by ice. The lake was fed by meltwater from the Baltic and from the Caledonian and Scandinavian ice sheets that joined to the north, blocking its exit. The sea level was about lower than it is today. Then, between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago, at least two catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods breached the Weald–Artois anticline.
The first flood would have lasted for several months, releasing as much as one million cubic metres of water per second. The flood started with large but localized waterfalls over the ridge, which excavated depressions now known as the "Fosses Dangeard". The flow eroded the retaining ridge, causing the rock dam to fail and releasing lake water into the Atlantic. After multiple episodes of changing sea level, during which the "Fosses Dangeard" were largely infilled by various layers of sediment, another catastrophic flood carved a large bedrock-floored valley, the Lobourg Channel, some 500 m wide and 25 m deep, from the southern North Sea basin through the centre of the Straits of Dover and into the English Channel. It left streamlined islands, longitudinal erosional grooves, and other features characteristic of catastrophic megaflood events, still present on the sea floor and now revealed by high-resolution sonar. Through the scoured channel passed a river, which drained the combined Rhine and Thames westwards to the Atlantic.
The flooding destroyed the ridge that connected Britain to continental Europe, although a land connection across the southern North Sea would have existed intermittently at later times when periods of glaciation resulted in lowering of sea levels. At the end of the last glacial period, rising sea levels finally severed the last land connection.
Ecology.
As a busy shipping lane, the Channel experiences environmental problems following accidents involving ships with toxic cargo and oil spills. Indeed, over 40% of the UK incidents threatening pollution occur in or very near the Channel. One of the recent occurrences was the MSC "Napoli", which on 18 January 2007 was beached with nearly 1700 tonnes of dangerous cargo in Lyme Bay, a protected World Heritage Site coastline. The ship had been damaged and was en route to Portland Harbour.
Human history.
The channel, which delayed human reoccupation of Great Britain for more than 100,000 years, has in historic times been both an easy entry for seafaring people and a key natural defence, halting invading armies while in conjunction with control of the North Sea allowing Britain to blockade the continent. The most significant failed invasion threats came when the Dutch and Belgian ports were held by a major continental power, e.g. from the Spanish Armada in 1588, Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars, and Nazi Germany during World War II. Successful invasions include the Roman conquest of Britain and the Norman Conquest in 1066, while the concentration of excellent harbours in the Western Channel on Britain's south coast made possible the largest amphibious invasion in history, the Normandy Landings in 1944. Channel naval battles include the Battle of the Downs (1639), Battle of Dover (1652), the Battle of Portland (1653), the Battle of La Hougue (1692) and the engagement between USS "Kearsarge" and CSS "Alabama" (1864).
In more peaceful times the Channel served as a link joining shared cultures and political structures, particularly the huge Angevin Empire from 1135 to 1217. For nearly a thousand years, the Channel also provided a link between the Modern Celtic regions and languages of Cornwall and Brittany. Brittany was founded by Britons who fled Cornwall and Devon after Anglo-Saxon encroachment. In Brittany, there is a region known as "Cornouaille" (Cornwall) in French and "Kernev" in Breton In ancient times there was also a "Domnonia" (Devon) in Brittany as well.
In February 1684, ice formed on the sea in a belt wide off the coast of Kent and wide on the French side.
Route to Britain.
Remnants of a mesolithic boatyard have been found on the Isle of Wight. Wheat was traded across the Channel about 8,000 years ago. "... Sophisticated social networks linked the Neolithic front in southern Europe to the Mesolithic peoples of northern Europe." The Ferriby Boats, Hanson Log Boats and the later Dover Bronze Age Boat could carry a substantial cross-Channel cargo.
Diodorus Siculus and Pliny both suggest trade between the rebel Celtic tribes of Armorica and Iron Age Britain flourished. In 55 BC Julius Caesar invaded, claiming that the Britons had aided the Veneti against him the previous year. He was more successful in 54 BC, but Britain was not fully established as part of the Roman Empire until completion of the invasion by Aulus Plautius in 43 AD. A brisk and regular trade began between ports in Roman Gaul and those in Britain. This traffic continued until the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD, after which the early Anglo-Saxons left less clear historical records.
In the power vacuum left by the retreating Romans, the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes began the next great migration across the North Sea. Having already been used as mercenaries in Britain by the Romans, many people from these tribes crossed during the Migration Period, conquering and perhaps displacing the native Celtic populations.
Norsemen and Normans.
The attack on Lindisfarne in 793 is generally considered the beginning of the Viking Age. For the next 250 years the Scandinavian raiders of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark dominated the North Sea, raiding monasteries, homes, and towns along the coast and along the rivers that ran inland. According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" they began to settle in Britain in 851. They continued to settle in the British Isles and the continent until around 1050.
The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Viking leader Rollo (also known as Robert of Normandy). Rollo had besieged Paris but in 911 entered vassalage to the king of the West Franks Charles the Simple through the Treaty of St.-Claire-sur-Epte. In exchange for his homage and fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory he and his Viking allies had previously conquered. The name "Normandy" reflects Rollo's Viking (i.e. "Northman") origins.
The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance language and intermarried with the area's inhabitants and became the Normans – a Norman French-speaking mixture of Scandinavians, Hiberno-Norse, Orcadians, Anglo-Danish, and indigenous Franks and Gauls.
Rollo's descendant William, Duke of Normandy became king of England in 1066 in the Norman Conquest beginning with the Battle of Hastings, while retaining the fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants. In 1204, during the reign of King John, mainland Normandy was taken from England by France under Philip II, while insular Normandy (the Channel Islands) remained under English control. In 1259, Henry III of England recognised the legality of French possession of mainland Normandy under the Treaty of Paris. His successors, however, often fought to regain control of mainland Normandy.
With the rise of William the Conqueror the North Sea and Channel began to lose some of their importance. The new order oriented most of England and Scandinavia's trade south, toward the Mediterranean and the Orient.
Although the British surrendered claims to mainland Normandy and other French possessions in 1801, the monarch of the United Kingdom retains the title Duke of Normandy in respect to the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands (except for Chausey) are Crown dependencies of the British Crown. Thus the Loyal toast in the Channel Islands is "La Reine, notre Duc" ("The Queen, our Duke"). The British monarch is understood to "not" be the Duke of Normandy in regards of the French region of Normandy described herein, by virtue of the Treaty of Paris of 1259, the surrender of French possessions in 1801, and the belief that the rights of succession to that title are subject to Salic Law which excludes inheritance through female heirs.
French Normandy was occupied by English forces during the Hundred Years' War in 1346–1360 and again in 1415–1450.
England and Britain: Naval superpower.
From the reign of Elizabeth I, English foreign policy concentrated on preventing invasion across the Channel by ensuring no major European power controlled the potential Dutch and Flemish invasion ports. Her climb to the pre-eminent sea power of the world began in 1588 as the attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada was defeated by the combination of outstanding naval tactics by the English and the Dutch under command of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham with Sir Francis Drake second in command, and the following stormy weather. Over the centuries the Royal Navy slowly grew to be the most powerful in the world.
The building of the British Empire was possible only because the Royal Navy eventually managed to exercise unquestioned control over the seas around Europe, especially the Channel and the North Sea. During the Seven Years' War, France attempted to launch an invasion of Britain. To achieve this France needed to gain control of the Channel for several weeks, but was thwarted following the British naval victory at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759.
Another significant challenge to British domination of the seas came during the Napoleonic Wars. The Battle of Trafalgar took place off the coast of Spain against a combined French and Spanish fleet and was won by Admiral Horatio Nelson, ending Napoleon's plans for a cross-Channel invasion and securing British dominance of the seas for over a century.
First World War.
The exceptional strategic importance of the Channel as a tool for blockading was recognised by the First Sea Lord Admiral Fisher in the years before World War I. "Five keys lock up the world! Singapore, the Cape, Alexandria, Gibraltar, Dover." However, on 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot made the first Channel crossing from Calais to Dover in an aeroplane. Blériot's crossing signalled a change in the function of the Channel as a barrier-moat for England against foreign enemies.
Because the "Kaiserliche Marine" surface fleet could not match the British Grand Fleet, the Germans developed submarine warfare, which was to become a far greater threat to Britain. The Dover Patrol, set up just before the war started, escorted cross-Channel troopships and prevented submarines from sailing in the Channel, obliging them to travel to the Atlantic via the much longer route around Scotland.
On land, the German army attempted to capture French Channel ports in the Race to the Sea but although the trenches are often said to have stretched "from the frontier of Switzerland to the English Channel", they reached the coast at the North Sea. Much of the British war effort in Flanders was a bloody but successful strategy to prevent the Germans reaching the Channel coast.
At the outset of the war, an attempt was made to block the path of U-boats through the Dover Strait with naval minefields. By February 1915, this had been augmented by a stretch of light steel netting called the Dover Barrage, which it was hoped would ensnare submerged submarines. After initial success, the Germans learned how to pass through the barrage, aided by the unreliability of British mines. On 31 January 1917, the Germans restarted unrestricted submarine warfare leading to dire Admiralty predictions that submarines would defeat Britain by November, the most dangerous situation Britain faced in either world war.
The Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 was fought to reduce the threat by capturing the submarine bases on the Belgian coast, though it was the introduction of convoys and not capture of the bases that averted defeat. In April 1918 the Dover Patrol carried out the Zeebrugge Raid against the U-boat bases. During 1917, the Dover Barrage was re-sited with improved mines and more effective nets, aided by regular patrols by small warships equipped with powerful searchlights. A German attack on these vessels resulted in the Battle of Dover Strait in 1917. A much more ambitious attempt to improve the barrage, by installing eight massive concrete towers across the strait was called the Admiralty M-N Scheme but only two towers were nearing completion at the end of the war and the project was abandoned.
The naval blockade in the Channel and North Sea was one of the decisive factors in the German defeat in 1918.
Second World War.
During the Second World War, naval activity in the European theatre was primarily limited to the Atlantic. During the Battle of France in May 1940, the German forces succeeded in capturing both Boulogne and Calais, thereby threatening the line of retreat for the British Expeditionary Force. By a combination of hard fighting and German indecision, the port of Dunkirk was kept open allowing 338,000 Allied troops to be evacuated in Operation Dynamo. More than 11,000 were evacuated from Le Havre during Operation Cycle and a further 192,000 were evacuated from ports further down the coast in Operation Ariel in June 1940. The early stages of the Battle of Britain featured German air attacks on Channel shipping and ports; despite these early successes against shipping the Germans did not win the air supremacy necessary for Operation Sealion, the projected cross-Channel invasion.
The Channel subsequently became the stage for an intensive coastal war, featuring submarines, minesweepers, and Fast Attack Craft.
The narrow waters of the Channel were considered too dangerous for major warships until the Normandy Landings with the exception, for the German Kriegsmarine, of the Channel Dash (Operation Cerberus) in February 1942, and this required the support of the Luftwaffe in Operation Thunderbolt.
Dieppe was the site of an ill-fated Dieppe Raid by Canadian and British armed forces. More successful was the later Operation Overlord (D-Day), a massive invasion of German-occupied France by Allied troops. Caen, Cherbourg, Carentan, Falaise and other Norman towns endured many casualties in the fight for the province, which continued until the closing of the so-called Falaise gap between Chambois and Montormel, then liberation of Le Havre.
The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Commonwealth occupied by Germany (excepting the part of Egypt occupied by the Afrika Korps at the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein, which was a protectorate and not part of the Commonwealth). The German occupation of 1940–1945 was harsh, with some island residents being taken for slave labour on the Continent; native Jews sent to concentration camps; partisan resistance and retribution; accusations of collaboration; and slave labour (primarily Russians and eastern Europeans) being brought to the islands to build fortifications. The Royal Navy blockaded the islands from time to time, particularly following the liberation of mainland Normandy in 1944. Intense negotiations resulted in some Red Cross humanitarian aid, but there was considerable hunger and privation during the occupation, particularly in the final months, when the population was close to starvation. The German troops on the islands surrendered on 9 May 1945, a day after the final surrender in mainland Europe.
Population.
The English Channel coast is far more densely populated on the English shore. The most significant towns and cities along both the English and French sides of the Channel (each with more than 20,000 inhabitants, ranked in descending order; populations are the urban area populations from the 1999 French census, 2001 UK census, and 2001 Jersey census) are as follows:
Culture and languages.
The two dominant cultures are English on the north shore of the Channel, French on the south. However, there are also a number of minority languages that are or were found on the shores and islands of the English Channel, which are listed here, with the Channel's name in the specific language following them.
Most other languages tend towards variants of the French and English forms, but notably Welsh has .
Economy.
Shipping.
The Channel has traffic on both the UK–Europe and North Sea–Atlantic routes, and is the world's busiest seaway, with over 500 ships per day. Following an accident in January 1971 and a series of disastrous collisions with wreckage in February, the Dover TSS, the world's first radar-controlled traffic separation scheme, was set up by the International Maritime Organization. The scheme mandates that vessels travelling north must use the French side, travelling south the English side. There is a separation zone between the two lanes.
In December 2002 the MV "Tricolor", carrying £30m of luxury cars, sank northwest of Dunkirk after collision in fog with the container ship "Kariba". The cargo ship "Nicola" ran into the wreckage the next day. There was no loss of life.
The shore-based long-range traffic control system was updated in 2003 and there is a series of traffic separation systems in operation. Though the system is inherently incapable of reaching the levels of safety obtained from aviation systems such as the traffic collision avoidance system, it has reduced accidents to one or two per year.
Marine GPS systems allow ships to be preprogrammed to follow navigational channels accurately and automatically, further avoiding risk of running aground, but following the fatal collision between Dutch Aquamarine and Ash in October 2001, Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) issued a safety bulletin saying it believed that in these most unusual circumstances GPS use had actually contributed to the collision. The ships were maintaining a very precise automated course, one directly behind the other, rather than making use of the full width of the traffic lanes as a human navigator would.
A combination of radar difficulties in monitoring areas near cliffs, a failure of a CCTV system, incorrect operation of the anchor, the inability of the crew to follow standard procedures of using a GPS to provide early warning of the ship dragging the anchor and reluctance to admit the mistake and start the engine led to the MV "Willy" running aground in Cawsand Bay, Cornwall, in January 2002. The MAIB report makes it clear that the harbour controllers were informed of impending disaster by shore observers before the crew were themselves aware. The village of Kingsand was evacuated for three days because of the risk of explosion, and the ship was stranded for 11 days.
Ferry.
The ferry routes crossing the English Channel, include (have included):-
Channel Tunnel.
Many travellers cross beneath the Channel using the Channel Tunnel, first proposed in the early 19th century and finally opened in 1994, connecting the UK and France by rail. It is now routine to travel between Paris or Brussels and London on the Eurostar train. Freight trains also use the tunnel. Cars, coaches and lorries are carried on Eurotunnel Shuttle trains between Folkestone and Calais.
Tourism.
The coastal resorts of the Channel, such as Brighton and Deauville, inaugurated an era of aristocratic tourism in the early 19th century. Short trips across the Channel for leisure purposes are often referred to as Channel Hopping.
Renewable energy.
The Rampion Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm located in the Channel, off the coast of West Sussex. Other offshore wind farms planned on the French side of the Channel.
History of Channel crossings.
As one of the narrowest and most well-known international waterways lacking dangerous currents, the Channel has been the first objective of numerous innovative sea, air, and human powered crossing technologies.
Pre-historic people sailed from the mainland to England for millennia. At the end of the last Ice Age, lower sea levels even permitted walking across.
By boat.
Pierre Andriel crossed the English Channel aboard the "Élise", ex the Scottish p.s. "Margery" in March 1816, one of the earliest seagoing voyages by steam ship.
The paddle steamer "Defiance", Captain William Wager, was the first steamer to cross the Channel to Holland, arriving there on 9 May 1816.
On 10 June 1821, English-built paddle steamer "Rob Roy" was the first passenger ferry to cross channel. The steamer was purchased subsequently by the French postal administration and renamed "Henri IV" and put into regular passenger service a year later. It was able to make the journey across the Straits of Dover in around three hours.
In June 1843, because of difficulties with Dover harbour, the South Eastern Railway company developed the Boulogne-sur-Mer-Folkestone route as an alternative to Calais-Dover. The first ferry crossed under the command of Captain Hayward.
In 1974 a Welsh coracle piloted by Bernard Thomas of Llechryd crossed the English Channel to France in 13½ hours. The journey was undertaken to demonstrate how the Bull Boats of the Mandan Indians of North Dakota could have been copied from coracles introduced by Prince Madog in the 12th century.
The Mountbatten class hovercraft (MCH) entered commercial service in August 1968, initially between Dover and Boulogne but later also Ramsgate (Pegwell Bay) to Calais. The journey time Dover to Boulogne was roughly 35 minutes, with six trips per day at peak times. The fastest crossing of the English Channel by a commercial car-carrying hovercraft was 22 minutes, recorded by the "Princess Anne" MCH SR-N4 Mk3 on 14 September 1995,
By air.
The first aircraft to cross the Channel was a balloon in 1785, piloted by Jean Pierre François Blanchard (France) and John Jeffries (US).
Louis Blériot (France) piloted the first airplane to cross in 1909.
On Friday, 26 September 2008, Swiss Yves Rossy aka "Jetman" became the first person to cross the English Channel with a Jet Powered Wing,
He jumped from a Pilatus Porter over Calais, France, Rossy crossed the English Channel where he deployed his parachute and landed in Dover
The first flying car to have crossed the English Channel is a Pégase designed by the French company Vaylon on Wednesday, 14 June 2017. It was piloted by a Franco-Italian pilot Bruno Vezzoli. This crossing was carried out as part of the first road and air trip from Paris to London in a flying car. Pegase is a 2 seats road approved dune buggy and a powered paraglider. The takeoff was at 8:03 a.m. from Ambleteuse in the North of France and landing was at East Studdal, near Dover. The flight was completed in 1 hour and 15 minutes for a total distance covered of including over the English Channel at an altitude of .
On 4 August 2019, Frenchman Franky Zapata became the first person to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered Flyboard Air. The board was powered by a kerosene-filled backpack. Zapata made the journey in 22 minutes, having landed on a boat half-way across to refuel.
By swimming.
The sport of Channel swimming traces its origins to the latter part of the 19th century when Captain Matthew Webb made the first observed and unassisted swim across the Strait of Dover, swimming from England to France on 24–25 August 1875 in 21 hours 45 minutes.
In 1927, fewer than ten swimmers (including the first woman, Gertrude Ederle in 1926) had managed to successfully swim the English Channel, and many dubious claims were being made. The Channel Swimming Association (CSA) was founded to authenticate and ratify swimmers' claims to have swum the Channel and to verify crossing times. The CSA was dissolved in 1999 and was succeeded by two separate organisations: CSA Ltd (CSA) and the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation (CSPF), both observe and authenticate cross-Channel swims in the Strait of Dover. The Channel Crossing Association was also set up to cater for unorthodox crossings.
The team with the most Channel swims to its credit is the Serpentine Swimming Club in London, followed by the international Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.
As at 2005, 811 people had completed 1,185 verified crossings under the rules of the CSA and the CSPF. The number of swims conducted under and ratified by the Channel Swimming Association to 2005 was 982 by 665 people. This includes 24 two-way crossings and three three-way crossings. The number of ratified swims to 2004 was 948 by 675 people (456 men, 214 women) and there have also been 16 two-way crossings (9 by men and 7 by women). There have been three three-way crossings (2 by men and 1 by a woman).
The Strait of Dover is the busiest stretch of water in the world. It is governed by International Law as described in "Unorthodox Crossing of the Dover Strait Traffic Separation Scheme". It states: "[In] exceptional cases the French Maritime Authorities may grant authority for unorthodox craft to cross French territorial waters within the Traffic Separation Scheme when these craft set off from the British coast, on condition that the request for authorisation is sent to them with the opinion of the British Maritime Authorities."
The fastest verified swim of the Channel was by the Australian Trent Grimsey on 8 September 2012, in 6 hours 55 minutes, beating the previous record set in 2007 by Bulgarian swimmer Petar Stoychev.
There may have been some unreported swims of the Channel, by people intent on entering Britain in circumvention of immigration controls. A failed attempt to cross the Channel by two Syrian refugees in October 2014 came to light when their bodies were discovered on the shores of the North Sea in Norway and the Netherlands.
By car.
On 16 September 1965, two Amphicars crossed from Dover to Calais.
Other types.
PLUTO was war-time fuel delivery project of "pipelines under the ocean" from England to France. Though plagued with technical difficulties during the Battle of Normandy, the pipelines delivered about 8% of the fuel requirements of the allied forces between D-Day and VE-Day.


Collective enfranchisement

Collective enfranchisement is a legal term in English property law used to describe a process whereby leaseholders of a block of flats of apartments can buy out their freeholder. The right to collective enfranchisement was granted by the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993.


RefugePoint

RefugePoint is a non-profit organization founded in 2005. RefugePoint has referred over 54,000 refugees for resettlement.
Through direct services, RefugePoint provides services to meet the needs of individuals and households. Through field building, RefugePoint supports other organizations to accelerate and expand programs for reaching refugee populations.
RefugePoint works to identify and protect refugees who have fallen through the cracks of humanitarian assistance, with an emphasis on serving women, children, and urban refugees. RefugePoint has three offices, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, Nairobi, Kenya, and Geneva, Switzerland.
The organization has worked primarily in Africa, in 28 countries, and over 48 locations, including: Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Djibouti, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
RefugePoint is a member of Refugee Council USA (RCUSA), a coalition of U.S. non-governmental organizations focused on refugee protection.
History.
RefugePoint was founded in 2005 by Sasha Chanoff and Dr. John Wagacha Burton. While conducting refugee rescue operations with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Sasha became aware of the unseen and therefore unmet needs of the many refugees living in urban settings.
On June 29, 2011 Mapendo announced that it changed its name to RefugePoint.
Programs.
Resettlement
Resettlement involves permanently relocating refugees to a safe country where they can rebuild their lives. RefugePoint deploys Resettlement and Child Protection Experts across Africa to meet with refugees in remote and often dangerous locations. RefugePoint staff works to expand opportunities for resettlement to locations and populations that are chronically overlooked and underserved. Aiming to improve the whole field, RefugePoint also works to
catalyze partnerships between the UNHCR, NGOs and governments to strengthen resettlement systems and policies. Since 2005, the RefugePoint team has helped over 54,000 refugees to access resettlement.
Self-Reliance
Self-reliance involves stabilizing refugees in the countries to which they have fled and helping them regain the social and economic ability to meet their essential needs and transition off of assistance.
Urban Refugee Protection Program
RefugePoint works to achieve long-term stabilization of refugees through its Urban Refugee Protection Program (URPP) in Nairobi, Kenya. The program provides food and housing assistance, small business grants, access to health care, education, and counseling services. The URPP uses a case management approach to enhance coordination and match available services with the
needs of each refugee household. The URPP helps refugee children to access education, and provides critical health and psychological services to many who have experienced trauma.
Field Building
Awards.
2013: The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School named RefugePoint founder and executive director Sasha Chanoff the 2013 recipient of the Gleitsman International Activist Award. The award is given biennially to a leader who has "improved the quality of life abroad and inspired others to do the same."
2010: RefugePoint's efforts were awarded with the Charles Bronfman Prize.
2007: RefugePoint received a Draper Richards Fellowship in 2007.
2006: RefugePoint won an Echoing Green Fellowship and was named a Waldzell Institute "Architect of the Future."


Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme

The Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, LATS, is an initiative by the UK government, through DEFRA to help reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) sent to landfill.
How does it work?
The Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003 provides the legal framework for the scheme and for the allocation of tradable landfill allowances to each waste disposal authority in England. These allowances will convey the right for a waste disposal authority to landfill a certain amount of biodegradable municipal waste in a specified scheme year.
Each waste disposal authority is able to determine how to use its allocation of allowances in the most effective way. It will be able to trade allowances with other authorities, save them for future years (bank) or use some of its future allowances in advance (borrow). This will allow individual waste disposal authorities to use their allowances in accordance with their investment strategy.
Performance.
In its first year, 2005/6, the total tonnage of biodegradable waste that could be landfilled in England was 15,196,000. The calculated amount that was landfilled was 12,386,666 tonnes, 18.5% less BMW than they were allocated.
Although it was deemed "a major driver of rapid landfill diversion and recycling rates" by the European Union, after 2010 the landfill tax had a greater effect in waste disposal.
Definition Clarity.
London's Western Riverside Waste Authority has declared that LATS guidance is flawed. The initial definition of municipal waste counted it as any waste that originated from houses or households. The most recent LATS guidance indicates that municipal waste is any waste under the control of the waste disposal authority. The problem lies when the waste disposal authority collects a proportion of commercial and industrial waste, which in one piece of legislation is counted and in the other is exempt. This leads to the potential for fines for some authorities.


Scleroderma-like reaction to taxanes

Scleroderma-like reaction to taxanes may occur in patients treated with docetaxel or paclitaxel, characterized by an acute, diffuse, infiltrated edema of the extremities and head.


Chlorantraniliprole

Chlorantraniliprole (Rynaxypyr) is an insecticide of the ryanoid class. Chlorantraniliprole is being developed world-wide by DuPont belonging to a new class of selective insecticides featuring a novel mode of action to control a range of pests belonging to the order Lepidoptera and some other Coleoptera, Diptera and Isoptera species.
Chlorantraniliprole opens muscular calcium channels (in particular the ryanodine receptor), rapidly causing paralysis and ultimately death of sensitive species. The differential selectivity Chlorantraniliprole had towards insect ryanodine receptors explained the outstanding profile of low mammalian toxicity. Chlorantraniliprole is active on chewing pest insects primarily by ingestion and secondarily by contact.
As active ingredient (a.i.) in insecticide -
a. Chlorantraniliprole 0.4% GR having the trade name Ferterra.
b. Chlorantraniliprole 18.5% SC having the trade name Coragen.


Royal Observer Corps Medal

The Royal Observer Corps Medal was instituted in 1950 by King George VI for long service by members of the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) in the United Kingdom. It was awarded until December 1995, when the ROC was stood down.
Service prior to 1939.
Prior to World War II, "Observer Corps" personnel were classed as "Special Constables", retained by local constabularies, and qualifying for the Special Constabulary Long Service Medal following nine years continuous service. This qualification ceased in August 1939 when RAF Fighter Command assumed sole responsibility for the ROC. However, service as a Special Constable on observer duties prior to August 1939 counted towards the ROC Medal, provided it had not already been reflected in an award of the Special Constabulary Long Service Medal.
The new medal.
In 1950 King George VI, as Air Commodore in Chief of the ROC, granted permission for the award of the Royal Observer Corps Medal in recognition of long service. For part-time personnel, the medal was awarded for twelve years continuous service. Each subsequent period of twelve years service was recognised by the award of a clasp depicting a "winged crown". On ribbon bars, a silver rosette was worn to represent each clasp. Peace time service by full-time salaried ROC Officers counted for half the qualification period for part-time personnel, therefore requiring up to twenty four years service to qualify for a medal or clasp, but with any previous war or part-time service counting in full.
Description.
Ribbon.
The medal ribbon is pale blue, with a silver central stripe, edged in dark blue; representing the pale blue of the daytime sky, with a searchlight beam in a night sky at its centre. The colours of the ribbon were to be repeated in the ROC stable belt, with the addition of two outer stripes of dark blue. The medal ribbon's colour sequence is reversed in the ROC "regimental" tie.
Medal.
The medal was die struck in cupronickel metal featuring the laureated head of Elizabeth II. Post-1953 medals featured the legend "+ELIZABETH II DEI GRA:BRITT:OMN:REGINA F:D:", ("+ELIZABETH·II·DEI·GRATIA·REGINA·F:D:" from the mid 1950s), on the obverse. The reverse features the coast-watcher figure from the ROC badge, depicted against a backdrop of coastal warning beacons, with the motto "FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED" on a scroll beneath the figure, together with the words "ROYAL OBSERVER CORPS MEDAL" around the circumference. The medal was suspended under an articulated bar depicting the RAF eagle. Although the medal was authorised in 1950, the first award was only made in 1953, and none were struck with the effigy of King George VI.
The medal was awarded named, with the recipient's rank, initials and surname stamped on the medal's edge, for example "OBSERVER L.F. COLLINGS".
Miniature ROC Medals were licensed and worn at formal "Black Tie" events where the invitation indicates such are permitted.
Unusual awards.
In July 1961 the Commandant ROC Air Commodore Wight-Boycott presented a Royal Observer Corps Medal to the Battle of Britain Class locomotive no.34050 "Royal Observer Corps", which had commenced service with the Southern Railway company in December 1946; the ceremony taking place at Waterloo station. The medal was mounted in a glass fronted cabinet in the driver's cab and the locomotive's side was repainted with a representation of the medal and its ribbon. These were displayed until the engine was retired from service and scrapped in the late 1960s. However, the original nameplate and front badge were recovered and displayed in the entrance hall of RAF Bentley Priory, (HQ ROC), until 1996 when they were transferred to the RAF Museum, Hendon.
The only occasion where an ROC Medal was awarded to a former member of the ROC was when UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation Sector Controller Kenneth Rodley was awarded the ROC Medal after twenty four years full-time service. Rodley commenced his ROC service as Group Training Officer with 20 Group (York) in February 1958 and was later seconded to the Home Office, in 1971. It had been realised that, due to an administrative error, Rodley's secondment had never officially converted to that of a full civil service transfer, and that he had therefore technically remained a member of the ROC. The Medal was awarded to him by Air Commodore George Black at a surprise ceremony in 1984 at RAF Scampton. Rodley attempted to make an acceptance speech but was overcome by emotion and took his seat to a standing ovation by those present.
Two recipients have received the ROC Medal with three clasps, representing 48 years of service including earlier service as Special Constables on observer duties.
Disestablishment.
The ROC was stood down in December 1995 and as such there are no ROC personnel in service. However, should the ROC ever be reactivated the ROC medal remains extant and awards could recommence at that time.
ROC Medals are much sought after by collectors of militaria, and examples reaching several hundred pounds have been recorded at auction.


Historic Automobile Group

The Historic Automobile Group International (HAGI) is a London-based research organization in the area of rare historic motorcars and collectors’ automobiles. HAGI is known for its classic car market indices, which have been calculated since December 2008, based on a proprietary market capitalization formula called “survivor weighting”.
Founded in 2007 HAGI has strong established links with members of the financial industry in London, Asia and North America, as well as the sector for historic motorcars.
Founding members are Dietrich Hatlapa, a former managing director of ING Barings financial markets, Hardeep Sohanpal, a publishing expert and private aviation specialist. They were joined by David Selby, a senior writer and journalist in the classic car sector and index expert Bruce Johnson, an independent advisor to global financial companies and author of "The Hedge Fund Fraud Case Book".
The purpose of the research initiative is to improve transparency in the sector and create the initial foundations for an investment infrastructure into this long established area of ‘passion’ investment.
HAGI runs a proprietary database of actual transactions in the sector for rare classic cars. Data is sourced from four areas: Private transactions, dealer transactions, marque experts and auction results.
HAGI describes itself as an "“independent research house and think tank with specialized expertise in the rare classic motorcar sector”".
HAGI claims more than 1,000 individual members from more than 15 countries.
The group has developed a set of professional indices (HAGI Indices) and releases index data on a monthly basis for five indices. HAGI Top and HAGI Top ex F&P are market indices whereas HAGI F (Ferrari), HAGI MBCI (Mercedes-Benz) and HAGI P (Porsche) are car marque specific indices. Index readings, other research results and market comments are published on its website Historic Automobile Group, in the Financial Times, and in Octane Magazine, a classic car special interest magazine based in the UK.
HAGI has been involved in a number of academic papers focusing on the classic car market.
Founder Dietrich Hatlapa published a reference book about the classic car market in May 2011.
References.
Alan van Bergen - "How do Classic Ferraris Perform as a Financial Instrument?" – Master Thesis, Tias Nimbas Business School, 2009
John Reed - "Rare cars put investors in pole position" - Financial Times, 29 August 2009.
Adrian Finighan – "Classic Car Investment" - CNN, 22 September 2009.
CNBC.com – "Classic Car Market on Bumpy Road" – 10 November 2009.
Octane Magazine – Market Comment, monthly since November 2009.
Thomas Hillenbrand – "Rasende Rendite" – Der Spiegel, 18 December 2009.
Seth Lubove – "Classic Obsession" – Bloomberg Markets Magazine, September 2010.
Scott Reyburn - McCartney’s Lamborghini for Sale; Bacon Priced $18 Million - Bloomberg.com, 31 May 2011
Sona Blessing - Alternative Alternatives: Risk, Returns and Investment Strategy, Wiley Finance, 2011, pp. 199–204
Dietrich Hatlapa - Better than Gold: Investing in Historic Cars - HAGI Publishing, May 2011.


Coral Sea

The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down the Australian northeast coast. The sea was the location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during World War II between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia.
The sea contains numerous islands and reefs, as well as the world's largest reef system, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981. All previous oil exploration projects were terminated at the GBR in 1975, and fishing is restricted in many areas. The reefs and islands of the Coral Sea are particularly rich in birds and aquatic life and are a popular tourist destination, both nationally and internationally.
Geography.
It is bounded in the west by the east coast of Queensland, thereby including the Great Barrier Reef, in the east by Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) and by New Caledonia, and in the northeast approximately by the southern extremity of the Solomon Islands. In the northwest, it reaches to the south coast of eastern New Guinea, thereby including the Gulf of Papua. It merges with the Tasman Sea in the south, with the Solomon Sea in the north and with the Pacific Ocean in the east. On the west, it is bounded by the mainland coast of Queensland, and in the northwest, it connects with the Arafura Sea through the Torres Strait.
The sea is characterised by its warm and stable climate, with frequent rains and tropical cyclones
Extent.
While the Great Barrier Reef with its islands and cays belong to Queensland, most reefs and islets east of it are part of the Coral Sea Islands Territory. In addition, some islands west of and belonging to New Caledonia are also part of the Coral Sea Islands in a geographical sense, such as the Chesterfield Islands and Bellona Reefs.
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Coral Sea as follows:
"On the North." The South coast of New Guinea from the entrance to the Bensbach River (141°01'E) to Gadogadoa Island near its Southeastern extreme (), down this meridian to the 100 fathom line and thence along the Southern edges of Uluma Reef and those extending to the Eastward as far as the Southeast point of Lawik Reef () off Tagula Island, thence a line to the Southern extreme of Rennell Island (Solomon Islands) and from its Eastern point to Cape Surville, the Eastern extreme of San Cristobal Island [Makira], Solomons; thence through Nupani Island, the Northwestern of the Santa Cruz Islands () to the Northernmost Island of the Duff Islands ().
"On the Northeast." From the Northernmost island of the Duff Islands, through these islands to their Southeastern extreme, thence a line to Méré Lava, Vanuatu Islands() and down the Eastern coasts of the islands of this Group to Anatom Island () in such a way that all the islands of these Groups, and the straits separating them, are included in the Coral Sea.
"On the Southeast." A line from the Southeastern extreme of Anatom Island to Nokanhoui (reefs) () off the Southeast extreme of New Caledonia, thence through the East point of Middleton Reef to the Eastern extreme of Elizabeth Reef () and down this meridian to Latitude 30° South.
"On the South." The parallel of 30° South to the Australian coast.
"On the West." The Eastern limit of the Arafura Sea [The entrance to the Bensbach River (141°01'E), and thence a line to the Northwest extreme of York Peninsula, Australia ()] and the East Coast of Australia as far south as Latitude 30° South.
Geology.
The Coral Sea basin was formed between 58 million and 48 million years ago when the Queensland continental shelf was uplifted, forming the Great Dividing Range, and continental blocks subsided at the same time. The sea has been an important source of coral for the Great Barrier Reef, both during its formation and after sea level lowering.
The geological formation processes are still proceeding, as partly evidenced by the seismic activity. Several hundred earthquakes with the magnitude between 2 and 6 were recorded in the period 1866–2000 along the Queensland coast and in the Coral Sea. On 2 April 2007, the Solomon Islands were struck by a major earthquake followed by a several metres tall tsunami. The epicentre of this magnitude 8.1 earthquake was northwest of Honiara, at a depth of . It was followed by more than 44 aftershocks of a magnitude 5.0 or greater. The resulting tsunami killed at least 52 people and destroyed more than 900 homes.
The sea received its name because of its numerous coral formations. They include the GBR, which extends about along the northeast coast of Australia and includes approximately 2,900 individual reefs and 1000 islands. The Chesterfield Islands and Lihou Reef are the largest atolls of the Coral Sea.
Hydrology.
Major Coral Sea currents form a counter-clockwise gyro which includes the East Australian Current. It brings warm nutrient-poor waters from the Coral Sea down the east coast of Australia to the cool waters of the Tasman Sea. This current is the strongest along the Australian coasts and transforms 30 million m3/s of water within a flow band of about 100 kilometres wide and 500 metres deep. The current is strongest around February and weakest around August.
The major river flowing into the sea is the Burdekin River, which has its delta southeast of Townsville. Owing to the seasonal and annual variations in occurrence of cyclones and in precipitation (typically between 200 and 1600 mm/year), its annual discharge can vary more than 10 times between the two succeeding years. In particular, in the period 1920–1999, the average flow rate near the delta was below 1000 m3/s in 1923, 1931, 1939, 1969, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1993 and 1995; it was above 25,000 m3/s in 1927, 1940, 1946, 1950, 1951, 1959, 1968, 1972, 1974 and 1991, and reached about 40,000 m3/s in 1946. This irregularity results in concomitant fluctuations of the sea water composition near the river delta.
The surface water temperature varies on the south of the sea from 19 °C in August to 24 °C in February. It is rather warm and stable at 27–28 °С in the north all through the year. Water salinity is 34.5–35.5‰ (parts per thousand). The water is mostly very clear, with the visibility of about 30 metres (100 ft) near the reefs.
History.
The Coral Sea takes its name from its coral formations of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest known reef system in the world.
In May 1942, a battle between Allied and Imperial Japanese naval units took place in the Coral Sea, which resulted in the prevention of the Japanese sea-borne invasion of Port Moresby.
Climate.
The sea has a subtropical climate and is frequently hit by tropical cyclones, especially between January and April. This range extends to November–May in the areas south to 10°S. Between 1969 and 1997, the GBR experienced 80 cyclones, 90% which were of category 1 or 2 (winds 17–33 m/s, central pressure 970–1000 hPa) and only 10% of category 3 (winds >33 m/s, pressure <970 hPa). The cyclone frequency decreased between 1997 and 2005 to 1.5 per year (12 in total).
Annual rainfall typically ranges between 1,000 and 3,000 mm depending on the area. Most rains fall between December and March, in bursts of 30–60 days. The number of clear days per year varies approximately between 80 and 125, and the typical temperature variation through the year are 18–27 °C.
Climate change made it 175 times more likely that the surface waters of the Coral Sea would reach the record-breaking temperatures March 2016 that bleached reefs, modeling analysis showed.
Winds.
Winds in the Coral Sea can be classified by season, longitude and latitude. Southeasterly trade winds dominate through all sea areas and all seasons, especially between 20°S and 25°S, west of the meridian of 155°E. However, between September and December they change to northerly and northwesterly winds in this region, and the direction is mostly southwestern in May–August. West of 155°E, gales are common between January and August and are less frequent in September–December.
In January, the northwest monsoon may occur between the parallels of 15°S and 20°S, west of the 150°E meridian. Gales are rare in this region most of the year except for June–August, when strong southeasterly winds occur a few days per month.
The southeasterly trades are also strong north of 15°S between March and November. They weaken and often change to westerly winds in December and to northerly and northwesterly winds in January
and February.
Flora.
The Australian shore of the Coral Sea is mostly composed of sand. The GBR is too far away to provide significant coral deposits, but it effectively screens the coast from the ocean waves. As a result, most land vegetation spreads down to the sea, and the coastal waters are rich in underwater vegetation, such as green algae. The most common genera of seagrasses are "Halophila" and "Halodule".
The islands of the GBR contain more than 2,000 plant species, and three of these are endemic. The northern islands have 300–350 plant species which tend to be woody, whereas the southern islands have 200 which are more herbaceous; the Whitsunday region is the most diverse, supporting 1,141 species. The plants are spread by birds.
Fauna.
The sea hosts numerous species of anemones, sponges, worms (e.g. "Spirobranchus giganteus" shown in the photograph), gastropods, lobsters, crayfish, prawns and crabs. Red algae "Lithothamnion" and "Porolithon" colour many coral reefs purple-red and the green alga "Halimeda" is found throughout the sea. The coastal plants consisting of only about 30–40 species, and mangroves occur in the northern part of the sea. Four hundred coral species, both hard corals and soft corals inhabit the reefs. The majority of these spawn gametes, breeding in mass spawning events that are triggered by the rising sea temperatures of spring and summer, the lunar cycle, and the diurnal cycle. Reefs in the inner GBR spawn during the week after the full moon in October, while the outer reefs spawn in November and December. Its common soft corals belong to 36 genera. There are more than 1500 fish species in the reef systems. Five hundred species of marine algae or seaweed live on the reef, including thirteen species of the genus "Halimeda", which deposit calcareous mounds up to wide, creating mini-ecosystems on their surface which have been compared to rainforest cover.
Crown-of-thorns starfish ("Acanthaster planci") is the major predator of the reefs, as it preys upon coral polyps by climbing onto them, extruding its stomach over them, and releasing digestive enzymes to absorb the liquefied tissue. An individual adult can eat up to 6 m2 of reef per year. In 2000, an outbreak of crown-of-thorns starfish contributed to a loss of 66% of live coral cover on sampled reefs. Changes in water quality and overfishing of natural predators, such as the giant Triton, may have contributed to an increase in the number of crown-of-thorns starfish.
There are at least 30 species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises, including the dwarf minke whale, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, humpback whale and dugongs. Six species of sea turtles breed on the GBR – the green sea turtle, leatherback sea turtle, hawksbill turtle, loggerhead sea turtle, flatback turtle and the olive ridley.
More than 200 species of birds (including 22 species of seabirds and 32 species of shorebirds) visit, nest or roost on the islands and reefs, including the white-bellied sea eagle and roseate tern. Most nesting sites are on islands in the northern and southern regions of the GBR, with 1.4–1.7 million birds using the sites to breed.
Seventeen species of sea snake, including "Laticauda colubrina" (pictured), live on the GBR in warm waters up to deep and are more common in the southern than in the northern section; none of them are endemic or endangered. The venom of many of these snakes is highly toxic; for example, "Aipysurus duboisii" is regarded as the world's most venomous sea snake.
There are more than 1,500 fish species, including the clownfish (Amphiprioninae), red bass ("Lutjanus bohar"), red-throat emperor ("Lethrinus miniatus"), coral trout ("Plectropomus leopardus") and several species of snapper (Lutjanidae). Forty-nine species mass spawn and eighty-four other species spawn elsewhere in their range. With a maximum total length of 0.84 cm (0.33 in), "Schindleria brevipinguis", which is native to the GBR and Osprey Reef, is one of the smallest known fish and vertebrate. There are at least 330 species of ascidians on the reef system with the diameter of . Between 300 and 500 species of bryozoans live on the reef.
Saltwater crocodiles live in mangrove and salt marshes on the coast. Around 125 species of shark, stingray, skates or chimaera live on the GBR, in addition to about 5,000 species of mollusc. The latter include the giant clam and various nudibranchs and cone snails.
One study of 443 individual sharks gives the following distribution of their species on the Australian side of the Coral Sea: grey reef shark ("Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos", 69%), whitetip reef shark ("Triaenodon obesus", 21%), silvertip shark ("Carcharhinus albimarginatus", 10%), tiger shark ("Galeocerdo cuvier", <1%) and great hammerhead ("Sphyrna mokarran", <1%). The interaction rate (free diving) at the Coral Sea reefs ranged from a few to 26 sharks per
hour. The rare "Etmopterus dislineatus" shark species is endemic to the central part of the Coral Sea. It has been observed at depths of 590–700 m on or near the continental slope.
Human activities.
The coastal areas of the Coral Sea were populated at least 40,000 years ago by prehistoric people descending through the northern islands. Those Aboriginal tribes have been dispersed and nowadays only about 70 groups live in the area around the GBR.
The sea was the location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during World War II between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia. An example is the wreckage of the "USS Lexington" found in 2018.
Navigation has long been a traditional human activity on the Coral Sea and there are 10 major ports on the Queensland coast alone. More than 3,500 ships operated in this area in 2007, making over 9,700 voyages that transported coal, sugar, iron ore, timber, oil, chemicals, cattle and other goods. The abundance of coral reefs hinders shipping traffic, and about 50–60 accidents per year were reported between 1990 and 2007 in the GBR alone.
Other economic activities in the sea include fishing and exploration of petroleum deposits in the Gulf of Papua. The sea is also a popular tourism destination. In 2006–2007, tourism on the GBR contributed A$5.1 billion to the Australian economy. The tourism is mostly foreign or from remote parts of Australia, with a local contribution of about A$153 million. In particular, about 14.6 million visits were made to the Coral Sea reefs by the Queensland residents over 12 months in 2008. Growing concerns over the environmental effects of tourism resulted in establishment in 1975 of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. There are also smaller state and national parks. In 1981, the Great Barrier Reef was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. From the middle of 2004, approximately one-third of the GBR Marine Park is protected from species removal of any kind, including fishing, without written permission.
It was suggested in 1923 that the Great Barrier Reef contains a major oil reservoir. After the "Commonwealth Petroleum Search Subsidies Act" of 1957, hydrocarbon exploration increased in Queensland, including a well drilled at Wreck Island in the southern Great Barrier Reef in 1959. In the 1960s, drilling for oil and gas was investigated throughout the Great Barrier Reef, in the Torres Strait, along "the eastern seaboard of Cape York to Princess Charlotte Bay" and along the coast from Cooktown to Fraser Island. In the late 1960s, more exploratory oil wells were drilled near Wreck Island in the Capricorn Channel, and near Darnley Island in the Torres Strait, but with no results. In the 1970s, responding to concern about oil spills, the Australian government forbade petroleum drilling on the GBR. Yet oil spills due to shipping accidents are still a threat to environment, with a total of 282 spills between 1987 and 2002.
Queensland has several major urban centres on the coast including Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Sunshine Coast and the industrial city of Gladstone, which inevitably contaminate the sea. About thirty rivers and hundreds of small streams add continental water, which contains sediments, pesticides and industrial waste. Runoff is especially concerning in the region south of Cairns, as it may receive up to 4200 mm of rain per year. About 90% of sea contamination originates from land farming activities. The area is continuously urbanising, so that the population is expected to increase by 40% by 2026. As a result, 70–90% of the coastal wetlands has been lost over the past decades, and many remaining flora species are endangered.
On 3 April 2010, the Chinese ship "Shen Neng 1" carrying 950 tonnes of oil, ran aground east of Rockhampton in Central Queensland, Australia, causing the 2010 Great Barrier Reef oil spill and inflicting the largest damage to the GBR and the Coral Sea so far. The scarred area was roughly long and wide, and some parts of it have become completely devoid of marine life. There are concerns that there could be considerable long-term damage and it will take 10 to 20 years for the reef to recover. By 13 April 2010, oil tar balls were washing up on the beaches of North West Island, a significant bird rookery and turtle nesting colony.
Protection.
The Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was proclaimed in December 2013, but it was not seen to offer enough protection for the environment. A group of 10 environmental NGOs came together as a coalition called the "Protect our Coral Sea" campaign, asking the government to create a very large highly protected Coral Sea Marine Park. In November 2011 the Australian government announced that a protected area was planned and pending approval.
The Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was renamed as the Coral Sea Marine Park in October 2017. It covers an area of and is assigned IUCN category IV. It is Australia's largest single marine park and is one of the world's largest protected areas.
Research.
Before 2020, only shallow parts of Coral Sea reefs had been mapped. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, some of the deepest parts of the sea were mapped using an advanced multi-beam sonar system aboard a research ship owned by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, after it was diverted from a Papua New Guinea deployment because of the pandemic. A robotic submarine sent back the first ever high-resolution footage and seafloor mapping of the vital marine protected area connecting the Great Barrier Reef to the Pacific Ocean. An area of was mapped, during 14 dives by the submarine, which went down up to into the depths and spent almost 100 hours in the sea. Geoscientist Jody Webster of the University of Sydney, marine geologist Robin Beaman of James Cook University led the expedition, with colleagues controlling the diving and mapping remotely from their homes, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. Rare marine life was identified after the images were shared with other scientists on social media, but researchers think that some of the species captured on film could be entirely new to science. Notable finds included a species of spikefish called "Hollardia goslinei", previously only seen in Hawaii, and "Tosanoides bennetti", first described in 2019 and never seen alive.


Last will and testament of Herbert Macaulay

The Last Will and Testament of Herbert Macaulay contained instructions from Nigerian nationalist Herbert Macaulay to his family and Nigerians about his last wishes.
Text.
Herbert Macaulay's will is transcribed below:
"This is the last WILL and TESTAMENT of me HERBERT SAMUEL HEELAS MACAULAY, Civil Engineer of Kirsten Hall, Balbina Street, in the Colony of Lagos, in the Country of Nigeria, in the West Coast of Africa, made this 6th day of May in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Forty-Six. "
"I hereby appoint and make Isaac Babalola Thomas, Editor and Proprietor of the Akede Eko, resident at 116 Igbosere Road Lagos, aforesaid, the sole Executor and Trustee of this my last WILL and TESTAMENT. "
"All previous WILL whatsoever made my by me at any place so ever, in various and varied circumstances so ever are hereby revoked. "
"I give devise and bequeath unto NIGERIA - Political and the Population thereof. All my love without rserve half of what remains should go to NIGERIA - Commercial; and the other half to NIGERIA - Physical; if there is anything yet remaining - it may go to MISS "NIGERIA" of the Daily Comet. "
"I give, devise and bequeath unto my detractors, inimical friends, antagonist and particularly those who had at any time so ever, libeled my good name or labeled it BAD, my free and frank forgiveness and pardon as it is humanly possible to have and to hold, till death do then snatch. "
"I give devise and bequeath unto the LAGOS TOWN COUNCIL, all that piece of Parcel of Land, situate and being at IKOYI CEMETERY, measuring seventy-two inches by forty-eight inches on the surface, and as deep as the regulations allow, or their affection for me can justifiably allow, wherein shall lay my bones, muscles, sinews and earthly frame, to hold and tend, to preserve, present and exhitibe in constant neat and decent condition unto the inhabitants of Lagos, to the casual visitor or Novel resident in Lagos and from generation unto generation. "
"I give, devise and bequeath unto the Beardless and Youthful Mallams of the North, my Treasured Moustache to emulate and copy, and withal to note that as the moustache and my Bow tie are both parallel and inseparable on my dress and person; so shall they be at par, and united with their Southern Brethren. "
"To all HATERS OF AFRICA and AFRICANS, I pronounced an ANATHEMA, I give the Curse of Paul on Alexander the Coppersmith - I devise the injuction of Aged (2nd Tim. IV:14). "
"David in re-ultimate fate of Joab and Shimer (1st King 11, 6 & 9) and I BEQUEATH unto them the plagues of Egypt, the Bubonic of Oko-Awo, and the Yellow Fever of Ogbomoso!"
"To every full-blooded African, I give and bequeath an annuity of 365 cheery days, 52 merry weeks and 12 happy months, to commence on the eighty-second day after my demise. "
"TO "OGEDENGBE" - my pact and tact "
"TO "NIMBE" - my haunt and vaunt "
"TO "DOYIN" - my pluck and luck "
"I give and devise and bequeath unto the Nigerian National Democratic Party - Longevity and Magnanimity of Spirit, and also the Proprietorship of the "LAGOS DAILY NEWS" - all other things being equal."
"I give, devise and bequeath unto the United Native African Church Mission, the essence of my lecture now in their possession delivered in September 1941, on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of that Mission. "
"I give and devise unto the NCNC my last orders to operate on my death “MARK TIME FOR FOUR DAYS - ADVANCE TO VICTORY, GOD’S SPEED”"
"To Nnamdi Azikiwe my last injunction"
"In witness whereunto I set my hands this 6th day of May, 1946"
(Sgd) H. MACAULAY,
Testator
Before and in the presence of us both who are present at the same time.
GABRIEL (Luminary Avenue Paradise)
CYGNUS (The Milky Way) His Star Angel
Witness to Marks;- Theodisius the Scribe (Mortal)
Their Angelic X Marks


Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey is a lawsuit appealed from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. The court heard the oral argument on September 26, 2018.
Opinion.
In an opinion filed January 18, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), rejecting claims under the Commerce Clause that largely echoed unsuccessful arguments made before the Ninth Circuit in a previous appeal concerning only the 2011 and 2012 versions of the LCFS. The Ninth Circuit noted that although the LCFS had been repealed and replaced in 2015, the “core structure” of the regulations (with their emphasis on fuels’ lifecycle emissions) and claims was the same as it had been when the court decided the first appeal. The Ninth Circuit therefore ruled that its prior decision on the 2011 and 2012 versions of the LCFS precluded the plaintiffs’ claims that the 2015 LCFS constituted impermissible extraterritorial regulation and that it facially discriminated against interstate commerce in ethanol and crude oil.
Regarding extraterritoriality, the court rejected the argument that the LCFS was motivated by a concern for environmental harms in other states, stating: “California did not enact the LCFS because it thinks that it is the state that knows how best to protect Iowa’s farms, Maine’s fisheries, or Michigan’s lakes.” The court said California's interest in lifecycle emissions arose from its concern about climate change's impacts on California and that the LCFS was therefore “a classic exercise of police power.”
Regarding facial discrimination, the court said that California was attempting “to address a vitally important environmental issue with vast potential consequences” and that it could not offer “a potential solution to the perverse incentives that would otherwise undermine any attempt to assess and regulate the carbon impact of different fuels … without the ability to differentiate the different production processes and power generation that are used to produce those fuels.”
The Ninth Circuit also held that the plaintiffs’ “structural federalism” claim was precluded by the court's recent decision on Oregon's Clean Fuel Program, in which the Ninth Circuit concluded that any such claim would be contingent on a finding that the program regulated extraterritorially. The Ninth Circuit emphasized that “[t]here is simply no reason to search beyond the Commerce Clause for the Constitution’s limits on the ability of states to affect interstate commerce.” In addition, the Ninth Circuit found that the plaintiffs had failed to take advantage of the opportunity given by its earlier decision on the 2011 and 2012 LCFS to show that the LCFS was actually intended “to prop up local fuel interests” and discriminate against interstate commerce.
The court also dismissed claims against the 2011 and 2012 versions of the LCFS as moot because the challenged laws were no longer in effect and plaintiffs’ obligations under the earlier versions had been discharged.


Turia Pitt

Turia Pitt (born 24 July 1987) is an Australian mining engineer, athlete, motivational speaker, and author.
Accident and later life.
On 2 September 2011, Pitt was competing in an ultramarathon through Western Australia's Kimberley region, when she was caught in a grass fire. During a subsequent inquiry, she stated there was "nowhere else to go" when the competitors tried to outrun an out-of-control blaze that swept up Selena Gorge, just outside Kununurra. Pitt suffered burns to 65 percent of her body. It was several hours before medical help arrived and she was air-lifted out. Doctors did not expect her to survive her injuries.
The parliamentary inquiry into the Kimberley Ultramarathon was damning of the race organisers, RacingThePlanet. Among other things, it was revealed that the organisers were unable to communicate properly between checkpoints.
Pitt launched Supreme Court action against RacingThePlanet, and in May 2014, it was reported that an out-of-court settlement had been reached.
Pitt has been profiled by the Australian television program "60 Minutes" and "Women’s Weekly". She has become a sought-after public speaker, appearing at such events as the TEDx Macquarie University conference in September 2014, giving an inspirational talk entitled "Unmask your Potential".
Pitt has mentored thousands through her online programs, raised funds and awareness for a variety of philanthropic concerns, and authored two books: "Everything To Live For" and "Unmasked." In 2018, she joined Anthony Robins as a headliner at the 2018 National Achievers Congress in Brisbane.
In 2014, Pitt was named the New South Wales Premier's Award for Woman of the Year and was a finalist for Young Australian of the Year. In 2016, she was a finalist in the Australian of the Year award, and the New South Wales finalist for "Telstra Business Woman of the Year" award. A cover story about her in "The Australian Women's Weekly" attracted worldwide media attention.
She is an Ambassador for Interplast Australia & New Zealand (now called ReSurge International), and has raised money for the organisation by leading trekking adventures. In that capacity, she walked the Great Wall of China in 2014, the Inca Trail in 2015, and the Kokoda Track in 2016. Through this work, along with her support for other ReSurge International fundraising initiatives, she has directly and indirectly contributed to more than $1 million being raised to support the organisation's work.
Medical problems.
Prior to the ultramarathon incident, Pitt was a healthy, fit athlete. As a result of her injuries in the fire, she was placed in a medically-induced coma for a month. All the fingers of her right hand, and two fingers on her left, had to be amputated. She endured six months in the hospital, underwent over 200 operations and spent two years in recovery. During that time, she was required to wear a full-body compression suit and mask, and was only allowed to remove it for an hour a day. The mask was required to help smooth out the scars on her face and body. She removed it for the first time on the "60 Minutes" program revealing her face to the world.
Personal life.
Pitt spent her childhood in Ulladulla, a small town in New South Wales. She attended Ulladulla Public School and Ulladulla High School. During her youth, she was well known for her athletic abilities and also performed well academically. She went on to the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where she completed a Bachelor of Engineering (Mining) / Bachelor of Science in 2010.
On 8 May 2016, Pitt competed in her first Ironman Australia competition, finishing in a time of 13:24:42. On 8 October 2016, she completed the Ironman World Championship at Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with a time of 14:37:30.
Pitt and her fiancé announced on 21 July 2017 that they were expecting a boy. On 7 December 2017, she gave birth to their son, Hakavai Hoskin.
On 9 February 2020, Turia announced on her Instagram page that she and fiancé Michael Hoskin welcomed their second child, another son, named Rahiti Hoskin.


Pad site

A pad site or outparcel is a freestanding parcel of commercial real estate located in the front of a larger shopping center or strip mall. Desirable because of their visibility to consumers, accessibility, and the ease of facilitating drive-thru service, pad sites are typically sought after by banks, casual dining, and fast food restaurants. Pad sites usually range between 2,000 and 75,000 square feet (). They can be ground leased by developers or purchased outright. The former offers a lower up-front cost, but the user is unable to use the land as collateral to finance building expenses because pad sites do not have their own legal address. The latter requires a larger capital investment, but provides the user an appreciable asset in real estate.


Nicolau syndrome


Offshore oil and gas in the United States

Offshore oil and gas in the United States provides a large portion of the nation’s oil and gas supply. Large oil and gas reservoirs are found under the sea offshore from Louisiana, Texas, California, and Alaska. Environmental concerns have prevented or restricted offshore drilling in some areas, and the issue has been hotly debated at the local and national levels.
Production.
From 1954 to 2007, federal offshore tracts produced of oil and of natural gas.
In 2007, federal offshore tracts produced 27% of the oil and 14% of the natural gas in the United States. Three of the top ten oil fields in the United States in terms of the proven remaining reserves were offshore in the Gulf of Mexico in 2007 (Mars-Ursa, Thunder Horse, and Atlantis). The oil production in the offshore area owned by the federal government reached in 2007, down from the record of produced in 2002. 2.86 TCF of offshore gas produced in 2007 was down from the high of 5.25 TCF produced in 1996.
Ownership of offshore oil and gas.
The issue of state versus federal ownership has a long and contentious history (see "Tidelands"). The US Supreme Court ruled in 1947 that the federal government owned all the seabed off the California coast; the court applied the same doctrine against Louisiana and Texas in 1950. The court ruling invalidated existing state leases over producing offshore oil fields in the three states. However, the US Congress passed the Submerged Land Act in 1953, which recognized state ownership of the seabed within of the shore. That same year Congress also passed the Outer Continental Shelf Act, which gave the federal government jurisdiction over minerals on and under the seabed farther offshore from state waters.
The first federal offshore lease sale was held in 1954, to offer oil production rights under federal seabed in offshore Louisiana.
State ownership.
Each coastal state owns the territory extending from the shore at mean low tide, and has jurisdiction to decide whether or not, and under what terms, to lease the territory for oil and gas. Exceptions include Texas and the west coast of Florida, which for historical reasons own the seabed out to from the shore. Louisiana is included in the 3 nautical mile rule, but because it had active offshore leases defined before 1950 (and before most other states), its territory is measured using the Admiralty Nautical Mile, while other states use the International Nautical Mile, adopted by the United States in 1954.
The exact definition of the shoreline, dividing state waters offshore and potential private land onshore, depends on state law. Shifting shorelines in the vicinity of oil fields have been a thorny issue. In the Goose Creek field along the coast in Harris County, Texas, so much oil was produced that the ground elevation sank ten or more feet, putting some privately owned oil-producing lands below sea level. The state of Texas then declared that the newly submerged land, along with its oil revenue, was state property.
Federal ownership.
Traditionally, nations owned the territory extending from shore. In 1945, President Harry Truman issued a proclamation extending US jurisdiction over mineral resources to the edge of the continental shelf; the proclamation was codified by Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953. The Geneva Convention on the continental shelf in 1958 recognized the right of each nation to the mineral resources on its adjacent continental shelf, out to a water depth of 200 m. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan issued a proclamation extending the US Exclusive Economic Zone to from the shore.
By virtue of the Law of the Sea, which the US has signed but not ratified, each nation controls an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that extends from its shore. The EEZ confers exclusive rights to a nation to explore and produce minerals, including oil and gas. In areas within 200 nautical miles of two or more nations, the territorial line is drawn equidistant from the shores of the two nations. The US and Canada referred a dispute over the EEZ boundary in the Atlantic Ocean to the International Court of Justice, which decided the matter (see "Georges Bank"). Article 76 of the Law of the Sea provides that nations may under certain circumstances extend their EEZs beyond the 200 nautical mile limit, to up to from shore.
The 200 nautical mile EEZ left a small area in the western Gulf of Mexico enclosed by the EEZs of the United States and Mexico, but outside the EEZ of either nation (the "doughnut hole"). The US and Mexico concluded a treaty to divide the area between them. A second, and as yet unresolved "doughnut hole" exists in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, bordered by the EEZs of the US, Mexico, and Cuba.
Leasing and drilling on federal offshore seabed is controlled by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), formerly named the Minerals Management Service (MMS). The BOEM issues leases through competitive bidding by sealed bids. The oil and gas company offering the highest up-front payment to the government (called a "bonus") wins the lease. The government also receives a fixed annual "rental" based on the area for non-producing leases, and a percentage of the market value of any oil or gas produced and sold ("royalty"). The leases expire after a set number of years, or continue however long afterward that oil and gas are continually produced from the lease. Individual tracts are generally . Current leases being offered in the Gulf of Mexico have 5-year terms for tracts in water depths of less than 400 m, and 8 years for tracts in water greater than 400 m. Royalty rates are 18.75% regardless of water depth. From 1954 through 2004, the federal government received $64 billion in bonuses, $3 billion in rentals, $89 billion in royalties, and $3 billion in taken-in-kind oil deliveries in lieu of royalties.
International ownership.
Some potential petroleum deposits underlie areas outside the EEZ. For example, the North Chuckchi Basin in the Arctic Ocean is partly inside and partly outside the US EEZ.
Offshore drilling by area.
Historically, offshore drilling began by extending known coastal oil- and gas-producing trends out into the ocean. For this reason, most US offshore drilling has taken place offshore Louisiana, Texas, California, and Alaska, areas with coastal onshore oil and gas fields.
Alaska.
The first federal lease sale offshore Alaska was held in 1976. Alaska produces oil and gas from offshore areas in the Cook Inlet and the Arctic Ocean. Endicott Island is an artificial island built to produce oil from beneath the Beaufort Sea. There are currently four artificial islands being used for drilling.
By Executive Order dated April 28, 2017, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will begin selling offshore leases in 2019.
California.
See "Offshore oil and gas in California"
Offshore drilling began in California in 1896, when operators in the Summerland Oil Field in Santa Barbara County followed the field into the ocean by drilling from piers built out over the ocean.
Leasing California state seabed is controlled by the State Lands Commission, which halted further leasing of state offshore tracts after the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969. In 1994 the California legislature codified the ban on new leases by passing the California Coastal Sanctuary Act, which prohibited new leasing of state offshore tracts. The federal government has had no new lease sales for offshore California since 1982. Offshore drilling has continued from existing platforms in state and federal waters.
State offshore seabed in California produced of oil per day, and federal offshore tracts produced of oil per day in November 2008. State and federal offshore tracts together made up 16% of the state's oil production. Notable offshore fields include the Ellwood Oil Field, which is partially onshore and partially offshore, and the Dos Cuadras Field, source of the 1969 spill, which is entirely within the federal zone.
Gulf of Mexico.
See "Offshore oil and gas in the US Gulf of Mexico"
The western and central Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, is one of the major petroleum-producing areas of the United States. In 2007, federal leases in the western and central Gulf of Mexico produced 25% of the nation's oil and 14% of the nation's natural gas. In 2008, federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico produced of oil, down from in 2002; however, due to new deep-water discoveries, the MMS projects that oil production from the Gulf of Mexico will increase to per year by 2013.
Major fields include Atlantis Oil Field, and the Tiber oilfield (discovered 2009) and others in the Keathley Canyon protraction area. Notable oil platforms include Baldpate, Bullwinkle, Mad Dog, Magnolia, Mars, Petronius, and Thunder Horse. Notable individual wells include Jack 2 and Knotty Head.
The eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Gulf Coast Florida, has never been a petroleum-producing area due to federal and state restrictions on exploration. Offshore platforms currently exist as far east as to near the Florida-Alabama border.
East Coast.
See "Offshore drilling on the US Atlantic coast"
In the late 1970s and early 1980s oil companies drilled 51 exploratory wells on federal leases on the outer continental shelf of the Atlantic coast. All the leases have now reverted to the government. A 1996 study by the MMS estimated undiscovered conventionally recoverable resources in Atlantic federal waters to be of oil and gas.
Pacific Northwest Coast.
The Sunshine Mining Co. made Washington state’s first oil discovery in July 1957, at a location 1.4 miles south down the coast from Ocean City. The discovery was on a state lease, and was below mean high tide, which made it an offshore well. Additional wells were drilled in the area, but none produced any oil. The discovery well made 11,032 barrels of oil before it was plugged in 1959.
In 1964, the federal government leased tracts totaling in offshore Oregon and Washington. Oil companies drilled six tests offshore Washington (three in state waters and three in federal waters) and seven tests in federal waters offshore Oregon. The OCS P-0130 well drilled offshore Oregon by Union Oil in 1966 was described as having "potential for commercial gas production", but none of the wells were completed as producers, and the federal leases expired in 1969.
Farther north, in Canadian waters, Shell Canada drilled 14 wells offshore from Vancouver Island from 1967-1969. None were successful. Canada has had a federal moratorium on offshore drilling on its west coast since 1972.
Great Lakes.
The lakebeds under the US portion of the Great Lakes are owned by the adjacent states. The only state that has allowed oil and gas drilling beneath the Great Lakes in recent years has been Michigan, and that only by directional drilling from onshore surface locations. All oil and gas drilling, either on or directionally beneath the Great Lakes, has been banned by federal law since 2002.
The Canadian side of Lake Erie has 480 producing gas wells in the lake. Gas production in Canadian Lake Erie waters dates back to 1913; more than 2000 wells have been drilled to the Clinton Sand, up to a few miles from the US side of the lake; the same formation produces gas from many onshore wells on the US side, but there are no wells in the US portion of the lake. The province of Ontario, where the offshore wells are located, allows gas wells, but not oil wells, in offshore Lake Erie. Ontario allows oil production from below the lake only from wells drilled directionally from onshore surface locations; a number of such directional wells are producing oil from beneath Lake Erie in the Goldsmith/Lakeshore Field.
A gas well to the Medina Group was drilled in 1958 in Pennsylvania state waters in Lake Erie.
The only state that has current oil and gas production from beneath the Great Lakes is Michigan. Michigan has 13 oil and gas wells that produce from below Lake Michigan, all drilled directionally from surface locations on shore. Directional drilling beneath the Great Lakes is now banned.
The US Geological Survey has estimated that of recoverable petroleum liquids and of recoverable natural gas underlie the US portion of the Great Lakes. Petroleum potential was given to all of the lakes except Lake Superior. The majority of the natural gas (3.0 TCF) is thought to underlie Lake Erie.
Restrictions on offshore drilling.
See "US offshore drilling debate"
State restrictions.
A number of states, including California and Florida, have banned leasing of state waters for oil and gas drilling. In 2009 a bill that would have partially rescinded a ban on oil and gas leasing of Florida state waters failed in the Florida statehouse (see "Offshore oil and gas in Florida").
In 2018, New Jersey enacted a law to ban oil and gas drilling in state waters and prohibit any constructions of oil and gas drilling infrastructure and facilities including pipelines and docks in New Jersey and its waters. This is an effort to cut off infrastructure to make it harder to drill in federal waters. New York, California, South Carolina and Rhode Island introduced similar bills in their states.
Federal restrictions.
Congress passed the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, which provided for the establishment of National Marine Sanctuaries, in which certain activities, including oil and gas drilling, are prohibited. To date, 13 sanctuaries with a combined area of have been so designated.
In 1982, the US Congress directed that no federal funds be used to lease federal tracts off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, or central and northern California. Over the years Congress added other areas until the prohibited area included all the east and west coasts, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Congress repeated the effective ban on offshore drilling in these areas every year until September 2008, when an appropriations bill passed the House and Senate without the ban.
In 1990, Congress passed the North Carolina Outer Banks Protection Act, prohibiting leasing and drilling on federal seabed offshore from North Carolina.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush issued an executive moratorium restricting federal offshore leasing to Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Alaska. The moratorium banned federal leasing through the year 2000 off the East Coast, West Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico (offshore Florida Gulf Coast), and the Northern Aleutian Basin of Alaska. In 1998, President Bill Clinton extended the moratorium through 2012. In July 2008, President George W. Bush rescinded the executive order.
In 2002, Congress imposed a moratorium on drilling on or directionally beneath the Great Lakes. The ban was made permanent by the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Part of the central and most of the eastern Gulf of Mexico was declared off-limits to oil and gas leasing until 2022 by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006.
Other mineral resources.
Offshore areas of the US may contain resources of sulfur, salt, sand and gravel, phosphate rock, manganese nodules, and heavy-mineral placer deposits. To date, none of these has been produced for commercial purposes except sulfur and salt in the Gulf of Mexico, and gold in Alaskan state waters near Nome. The MMS has allowed sand dredging in federal waters to restore damaged beaches in Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida. Formerly, very large gold dredges existed for many years, mining off of Nome, Alaska. The state lease auctions for up to the three mile limit are still held infrequently.
From 1960 to 2000, sulfur was mined by the Frasch process from the caprock of a salt dome at the Main Pass 299 mine, offshore Louisiana. A total of 34 million short tons of sulfur were recovered before the mine was closed; salt was also recovered.


IMO 5020990


Geary v Rankine

 is an English land law case, concerning constructive trusts, and the establishment of a beneficial interest in an enterprise between a business owner and his or her lover and co-worker. It specifically concerned a case where the latter person received no formal wages and had entered no formal ownership nor partnership agreement nor directly or indirectly contributed in money to the purchase price.
Facts.
Mrs Geary and Mr Rankine had been in a relationship since 1990. In 1996, Rankine purchased a guest house with his own savings. The parties had not intended to live in the property or run it themselves; instead having it run by a manager. Difficulties with the manager led Rankine to run the business himself. He realised that he could not run it alone. Geary became involved in the business: cleaning, cooking and looking after guests. Rankine did not pay Geary wages, and she asked for money when she needed it. The relationship deteriorated. Geary brought a claim for an interest in the guest house. She claimed she either had a business Partnership (as defined under the Partnership Act 1890) or a constructive trust as defined by case law.
Judgment.
At first instance, the Judge rejected Geary's claim. She appealed.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the legal title was solely in Rankine's name and so the burden of establishing a constructive trust was on Geary. The relevant question was whether there was a common intention for Geary to have a beneficial interest in the property, applying "Jones v Kernott" [2011] UKSC 53, which must be determined objectively from the parties' conduct. Geary had shown there was a common intention to run the business together, but it was not correct to therefore reach a conclusion of a common intention that the property in which the business was run, bought by only one of them, would if so belong to both of them. The judge at first instance had not erred in probing the evidence and concluding there was no constructive trust.
Lewison 's summative paragraph reads:


Worldscale

Worldscale is a unified system of establishing payment of freight rate for a given oil tanker's cargo. Worldscale was established in November 1952 by London Tanker Brokers’ Panel on the request of British Petroleum and Shell as an average total cost of shipping oil from one port to another by ship. A large table was created as result.
The same scale is used today, although it was merged with the American Tanker Rate Schedule (ATRS) in 1969. By 2002, the table included the average cost of 320,000 voyages of different combinations of one load and one discharge port to five loads and ten discharge ports. Worldscale is produced by Worldscale Association (NYC) Inc. for the Americas and by Worldscale Association (London) Ltd. for the rest of the world. The freight for a given ship and voyage is normally expressed in a percentage of the published rate and is supposed to reflect the freight market demand at the time of fixing.
Following are some samples.
In negotiating a price to pay, the above table is referred to as WS100 or 100% of Worldscale. The actual price negotiated between shipowner and charterer can range from 1% to 1000% and is referred to respectively as WS1 to WS1000, depending on how much loss the first is willing to take on that voyage and how much the latter is willing to pay.


Jon Manteca

Jon Manteca Cabañes, better known as Cojo Manteca (Manteca, the cripple) (Mondragón, Guipúzcoa, 1967 - Orihuela, Alicante, May 25, 1996), was a person elevated to media icon in the late 1980s in Spain after the publication of photographs and videos that showed him smashing street furniture in a student demonstration in January 1987.
Biography.
He was born in Mondragón (Guipúzcoa) in 1967. On January 26, 1983, when he was 16, an electric shock caused him to fall from a pylon which he had climbed. Because of the wounds caused by the electricity and fall, he lost a leg and suffered severe head injuries, including a great scar across his head from side to side.
Punk and homeless, on January 23, 1987 he was a newcomer to Madrid. He was begging when he casually wandered onto one of the many student demonstrations that roamed the city at the time. This time the scene was at the intersection of Alcalá Street and Gran Vía, in front of the Ministry of Education, and the demonstration was unusually violent. The police arrived and started to shoot, hitting a demonstrator, Maria Luisa Prada, who was 15 years old. Cojo Manteca, infected by the violent environment, as he explained later, used the one crutch he used to walk to break a Metro signboard station and a thermometer-clock near the Bank of Spain, and that attitude was captured by the cameras of EFE press. The photograph ran on the front pages of national and foreign newspapers due to the colorful character (punk aesthetic, mutilation, scarring, violence), and soon ended up being converted by the media as a symbol of the student demonstrations, despite him not being a student nor having any relationship with the protest, other than being there by chance. He was identified days later in Seville and spent a brief period in prison.
On March 12, 1987 he was arrested charged on public scandal in Valencia for insulting Our Lady of the Forsaken in her basilica. He spent 120 days in prison.
He died on 25 May 1996 due to AIDS