History of the Oceans- Vikings

One aspect of Monday Jan.8th lecture that I thought would be interesting to read more about was how the vikings in the middle ages impacted the development of oceanography. One key point that I noticed to be very intriquing was that fact that it was the vikings not Christopher Columbus who is frequently dicussed in history, that came accross North America first. his was accomplished by Leif Eriksson, who in 1002 sailed from Greenland (which they were also the first europeans to settle) to North America an amazing 500 years before Columbus. The vikings were the first people from the old world to arrive at the new world.
As a side note in the newspaper today Jan.9/07, there was an article that discussed how United States lobster fisherman should have a shorter season as well as use fewer traps to help sustain and protect right whales. This article helped show the interconnectedness that occurs within the oceans and its biological fauna, as people who are fishing lobster are not only depleting that resource by overfishing ,but their traps are also acting as a means of hurting the right whale population, which as a huge mammal requires many resources to survive and is fragile to begin with. This also hurts the diversity in the oceans, as if the right whale population decreases/becomes extinct the species evenness and species richness will both decrease and a ripple effect will be seen throughout the food chain. The United States government is doing a great thing by urging these fishermen to change their practice.