Special Inventions in Terra Sea Merge

 Introduction

 

As Terra Sea Merge takes place mainly in the city of Oceania, there were few new inventions for this novel as most of the ones pertaining to the city have already been highlighted in the Oceania: The Underwater City and Allie’s Return novels. The one invention created specifically for this novel was briefly mentioned in chapter thirteen.

 

“She pointed to a machine called WQAD, short for Water Quality Analysis Device. It was like a spectrometer, except that it was more detailed in analyzing the chemical components of water down to the specific makeups of each particle.”

-Allie, Terra Sea Merge

 

Water Quality Analysis Device (WQAD)

Being surrounded by water, much of the science conducted in Oceania relates to water. Having a device that can analyze the chemical composition of the water and identify any impurities or the chemical makeup of any contaminants is essential. Enter the Water Quality Analysis Device (WQAD). The WQAD is used by marine scientists, chemical scientists, and even marine microbiologists. The use of it is so widespread that you’ll find it in any middle school or high school in Oceania located beside the typical microscopes. As an essential piece of technology, every laboratory in Oceania has a WQAD.

 

The WQAD works by placing a water sample as small as 5ml (0.17 ounces) into a container and placing it inside the WQAD. The WQAD will then analyze everything present in the sample down to each atom. A digital readout displays the chemical composition of the sample, including the most present element in the sample. The WQAD can be programmed to further analyze the sample, including suggesting the probable source of an unknown sample. Versatile, it can also be programmed to analyze any aqueous or liquid solution beyond water.

 

You’ve reached the end of the blog post for this week. The next blog post will be released next month. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and if you have any comments, you can leave them here on my blog or email me directly at elizataye@gmail.com. As always, I love hearing from my readers.

Sea Creatures –Terra Sea Merge

 

Introduction

I’ve mentioned several times before how research on the deep sea is still lacking in many areas. Each Oceania: The Underwater City book, I try to incorporate new, rare species of the deep. However, by book four, I am running out of deep-sea creatures native to the Pacific Ocean to include in the newer novels that haven’t been featured before. Thus, for Terra Sea Merge, I had only one new species: Deepstaria enigmatica. You may remember that it was briefly mentioned and seen in Shark Station, but it wasn’t in the wild so I did not include it in previous sea creature features. So, now, Deepstaria enigmatica will have one all dedicated to itself. The other sea creatures in the novel have all had been featured in one of the previous sea creature blog posts. At the bottom of this post, I’ll link to all the others in case you missed them or would like to read them again. Also, I could not find any public domain photos for this species, but my list of references (particularly #3) have great photos of one. Clickhere if you want to see a photo before reading.

 

Deepstaria enigmatica

Deepstaria enigmatica is a rarely seen jellyfish lacking tentacles. Instead, it consists solely of a net of interconnected canals making up their digestive system and other bodily functions. The main part of the jellyfish is its bell⁽¹⁾, which has been observed to be as wide as a meter across⁽²⁾. The bell is so thin and fragile that it can easily be torn, even by something as simple as water movement. Most of what we know about Deepstaria enigmatica comes from a specimen collected in 1966. It was named and described by F. S. Russell in 1967. There are only two known species in the genus Deepstaria: Deepstaria enigmatica and Deepstaria reticulum. Neither species has tentacles, but both possess a similar membranous umbrella⁽³⁾.

 

Little is known about Deepstaria enigmatica; their biology, behavior, maximum depth, reproductive biology, and full distribution are still mysteries to science. What is known for sure about their distribution is that they are found in the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern Oceans⁽²⁾⁽³⁾. Predators are unknown, but shrimps and crabs have been observed feeding on the carcass of Deepstaria enigmatica. As for feeding, researchers believe they may use close their bell to trap their prey. During a deep-sea research dive in 2017, scientists observed the jellyfish close its bell in less than three seconds. Once closed, a small hole remained open that they noticed didn’t increase or decrease upon the jellyfish being disturbed. They hypothesized that it may use this closing of the bell for locomotion in addition to feeding⁽³⁾.

 

References

(1) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/05/rare-jellfish-filmed-mexico-animals-spd/

(2) https://www.sciencealert.com/rare-jellyfish-deepstaria-enigmatica-caught-on-film-rov-hercules

(3) http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/handle/2246/6874

 

 Links to Other Sea Creature Features Blog Posts in the Oceania: The Underwater City Series:

Oceania: The Underwater City

Sea Creatures Part 1— Marine Life

Sea Creatures Part 2—Intertidal Life

Sea Creatures Part 3—Deep-Sea Life

Allie's Return

Sea Creatures Part 1 – Sunlit Marine Life

Sea Creatures Part 2 – Marine Deep-Sea Life in Allie’s Return

Shark Station

Sea Creatures Part 1 - Sharks

Sea Creatures Part 2 – Animals of the Pelagic

Sea Creatures Part 3 – Animals of the Abyss

 

This concludes the sea creatures feature for Terra Sea Merge. Unlike the other novels, this is the only one. The next blog post will be about my research for the novel. I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post even though it was short. If you have any questions or comments, you can leave them directly on my blog or email me at elizataye@gmail.com. I love hearing from my readers!

Inspiration for the Story: Terra Sea Merge

 For me, Terra Sea Merge was different than any of the previous Oceania novels. For one, there was no specific inspirational moment that directed the development of this novel. Instead, I focused on my desire to tell a different sort of Oceania: The Underwater City story. After Shark Station, I wanted to return the main setting of the novel to Oceania. However, I also needed to address the events that occurred in the last few chapters of Shark Station since they led into the story of Terra Sea Merge. More than anything, Terra Sea Merge came out of necessity. The events at the end of Shark Station led to Allie agreeing to have an exchange program between Land Dwellers and Oceanians. This gave me the chance to explore how other Land Dwellers who think and act differently from Allie might view the city. It allowed for interesting and comical moments throughout the story, but also allowed me to reintroduce some characters from Allie’s Return who didn’t make an appearance in Shark Station.

 

As I wrote this story, I tried to think of the districts of Oceania and its society that the reader hadn’t been exposed to in the previous novels. So Terra Sea Merge has a couple of new districts that Allie and the exchange students visit along with other cultural explorations you’ll read about in the novel. If anything, this novel inspired me to write differently. As usual, everything is through Allie’s eyes, but she’s seeing things in a different light and is forced to handle problems she’s never faced before.

 

I know this inspiration for the story was shorter than the others, but there’s really not much else to say. I hope you enjoy reading Terra Sea Merge!

 

You’ve reached the end of the blog post for this week. Subscribe to be notified of the next blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post and if you have any comments, you can leave them here on my blog or email me directly at elizataye@gmail.com. As always, I love hearing from my readers.