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PHOTO OF THE DAY January 20, 2004  

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Where Off Kaikoura Peninsula, New Zealand
When 1997
Photographer Maria Stenzel

A whale's vanishing tail is a reminder of the Kaikoura Peninsula's past life as a whaling center. Just off the coast, the continental shelf plunges, forming an underwater canyon. Upwelling nutrients from the canyon form the base of an offshore food chain—with whales at the top.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Deep Mysteries of Kaikoura Canyon," June 1998, National Geographic magazine)

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