The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob and Other Matters of Importance

For those of you that may be unfamiliar with the term, a “sea blob” — also known as a “globster” — is an “unidentified organic mass that washes up on the shoreline of an ocean or other body of water.” The title of the book refers to a highly publicized event in 2003 where one such “organic mass” washed up on the coast of Chile. Biologists were unable to readily determine what the “blob” was, and the world had to wait nearly a year before DNA testing revealed it to be the remains of a sperm whale. Many such events have occurred over the decades with the remains often misidentified as sea monsters, giant octopuses, or modern-day plesiosaurs.

Carter has apparently worked the Chilean sea blob into a collection of short stories, which his publisher describes as follows:

Much as Theodore Carter’s title sea blob proves a challenge to classify, the other matters of importance in this, the author’s debut, story collection emerge as equally amorphous and downright slippery when it comes to categorization. Yet, fleshy narrative makes indexing possible by way of a catalogue of characters who aren’t simply arranged, but rarities that act — largely at great personal risk. From the competitive eater working against an internal clock to a disengaged young man beguiled by an animate voodoo doll, from a junior-high water-walker to an eyebrow arsonist, the affable oddities of The Life Story of a Chilean Sea Blob and Other Matters of Importance confront doubt in its multifarious forms, establishing classification — organized into engaging, compelling, and affecting — as tantamount to the anomalous lives we lead.

Honestly, I’m not really sure what that description even means! But if it catches your fancy, by all means click through and read the reviews for yourself. Carter is also selling some “sea blob bling” here. (Ok, fine, it’s really just a bunch of t-shirts.)

Ichthyosaurs were giant marine reptiles that existed between 90 and 245 million years ago. This was, in case you weren’t sure, before the Internet. But still, one wonders — if the interweb were around during the Jurassic period, do you think there would have been an Exploding Ichthyosaur website? Recently, a group of scientists published a paper that could help answer that question.

I received an email from one of the Swiss researchers:

Subject: a new publication about “exploding whales”
Date: February 4, 2012 10:28:01 AM PST

Hi there,
yesterday our paper about “exploding whales” was published:
“Float, explode or sink: postmortem fate of lung-breathing marine vertebrates”
Best regards from Switzerland

It’s not the first time the Exploding Whale has been the inspiration for an academic pursuit. Fellow University of Puget Sound alumnus Chris van Vechten’s senior thesis, “Rendered, Redeemed & Transformed: The Social History of Whale Carcass Disposal on Northwest Shores” [pdf], was similarly inspired. Van Vechten’s thoughtfully researched 31-page survey of whale disposal in the Pacific Northwest draws a slightly ominous conclusion:

All that is certain is that – just as beached whales have played a tremendous role in shaping our past – so too are they bound to shape our future.

As for the Swiss paleontologists, it was the extent to which exploding “whales” (er, ichthyosaurs) may have influenced the prehistoric past that concerned them. In their paper, “Float, Explode or Sink: Postmortem Fate of Lung-Breathing Marine Vertebrates,” Reisdorf et al. try to determine whether putrefaction-induced ichthyosaur carcass explosions could explain the “skeletal disarticulation observed frequently in the fossil record.” In other words, they’re trying to figure out if prehistoric “whale” explosions are the reason bone fossils are sometimes found scattered about instead of all together.

Because, as students of the Exploding Whale know, a violent internal explosion could do that, right? As would the detonation of 1,000 pounds of explosives next to a dead whale….

Regrettably, only an abstract of the article is available (for free), but the authors tip their hand on their conclusions. In what has to be one of the most disappointing scientific results of the 21st century, the scientists conclude that ichthyosaur carcasses probably did not frequently explode and scatter bones. Rather, they conclude that dead prehistoric whale-like creatures would have sunk to the sea floor and would have only resurfaced when “they remained in shallow water above a certain temperature and at a low scavenging rate.” Subsequently, bone scattering would have supposedly occurred as the carcass floated around and decomposed gradually.

And so, as for my original question, it sounds like TheExplodingIchthyosaur.com would not have been a very popular destination on the prehistoric Internet. Good thing, too, ’cause I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs of the time would not have been able to type it correctly.

A few links of interest:

• Video: Exploding whale cited in Reisdorf et al. research paper - YouTube
• Definition: Whale fall - Wikipedia
• Video: The Luminous Deep - YouTube
• Video: Whale Fall (after life of a whale) - Vimeo.com
• Video: Whale Fall Community - YouTube
• Nekton Falls - music project based on dead organisms dropping to the bottom of the ocean, rotting and eventually turning into food for a new generation
• Video: A different kind of whale fall… - YouTube

Inflatable whales gathered around Sydney Harbor, Australia, to mark the start of the annual whale migration season in that area.

A popular beach on the Washington coast became home to a dead gray whale, and the state moved quickly to bury the carcass before scores of clam diggers were to arrive just two days later. The 38-foot female was the third whale to wash up in the area in recent years.

In the report linked below, the reporter makes explicit mention of Oregon’s Exploding Whale:

“I think it’s the best thing they can do, unless they can take it out there and let the fish eat it or whatever,” she said.

That’s wouldn’t work; it would just come back with the tide.

And everyone knows that blowing it up is a lousy idea. They tried that, with disastrous results some years back in Florence, Oregon.

Media links:

• Article: ‘The most horrible smell you’ve smelled’: Dead whale washes ashore - KOMO News
• Video: ‘The most horrible smell you’ve smelled’: Dead whale washes ashore - KOMO News

Archived copy of the video from the Exploding Whale video portal on YouTube:

• 40th anniversary articles & videos - TheExplodingWhale.com

• Dynamite idea 40 years ago blew up into a whale of a story (video) - KVAL
• ‘We almost didn’t get it on air’ (video) - KATU
• 40th Anniversary of the Exploding Whale (includes video)- KATU AM Northwest
• 40th Anniversary of Oregon Coast Exploding Whale Film Clip - BeachConnection.net
• The 40th anniversary of the funniest thing to ever happen in Oregon, and the lessons learned - Statesman Journal

And be sure to join the virtual celebration on Facebook!

The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.
- Paul Linnman, TV news reporter, Nov. 12, 1970

Links to a couple news articles are available on our permanent archive page:

• South Africa (9/29/2010) - TheExplodingWhale.com

Thanks to reader David R., we’ve learned about a stranded humpback whale that was euthanized via an explosive charge. The sick 31-foot, 12-ton whale had been stuck in Princess Royal Harbor in southwestern Australia for two weeks. Authorities imposed a 1-km exclusion zone around the whale before detonating a charge directly above the whale’s brain. Officials plan to bury the carcass.

• Stranded whale in Albany’s Princess Royal Harbour euthanased (video) - PerthNow
• Stranded whale blown up - WA Today
• Stranded whale in WA killed with explosives - PerthNow
• Blown Up: Stranded Whale Is Put To Death - Sky News
• Stranded whale goes out with a bang - Sydney Morning Herald
• Stranded whale to be blown up in harbour - ABC News
• Explosives to be used to kill whale - United Press International

Watch: news video from Perth Now

View our permanent archive page here:

• Australia (9/2/2010) - TheExplodingWhale.com

The carcass came to rest on an easily-accessible beach just a few miles north of where a giant sperm whale corpse washed up in November, 1970. The Oregon Highway Division had responsibility for disposing of the whale at that time, and their thinking was evidently along the lines that a dead whale was probably a lot like a huge boulder blocking a road construction project. The decision to use dynamite to obliterate the rotting, stinking whale carcass is now stuff of legend.

Regrettably, cooler heads prevail at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, upon which the responsibility for disposing of the rare 40-foot fin whale falls today:

“We normally bury animals like this on the coast,” said Chris Havel, a state parks spokesman. “But the sand there is so shallow that burying just isn’t an option. There are also archaeological sites we have to be sensitive to….”

“One of the options is to tow it offshore, but that will take some coordination and logistics,” Havel said.

Asked if dynamite was one of the possibilities being considered, Havel burst out laughing, then answered, “No.” (RG)

Update: The whale has been buried on the beach at Devil’s Elbow State Park:

Old whale removal technique: Stuff full of dynamite, blow to smithereens.

New whale removal technique: Dig whale-sized hole. Roll whale down beach. Push whale into hole.

The modern-day approach to cetacean disposal proved far less messy than the former on Monday afternoon, as state parks officials and a crew from Florence-based Leisure Excavating bulldozed a 55-foot fin whale into a crater at Devil’s Elbow State Park. (RG)

View a great video of the burial, courtesy of the Register-Guard.

External links:

• Washed up fin whale forces beach closure - Register-Guard
• Whale washed up near Heceta Head awaits burial - The Oregonian
• What not to do with a dead whale - The Oregonian
• State will attempt whale burial at Oregon Coast beach - MSNBC/KGW
• How do you get a whale carcass off a beach? - KVAL
• Dead whale buried at the beach (video) - KVAL
• End to sad tale of whale (video) - Register-Guard
• Beached Whale Buried (includes video) - KEZI
• Crews cut up, bury whale (video) - KVAL