BOOM! That time Oregon blew up a whale with dynamite.

BOOM! That time Oregon blew up a whale with dynamite.

When a whale dies in the ocean, an ecosystem grows around its sunken carcass. It’s an epic burial at sea, something researchers call a whale fall. The body is a literal smorgasbord on which deep sea creatures and bacteria feast for years at a time before what’s left transforms into a reef festooned with anemones and sponges. A whale that dies stranded on land is something different, a stinking mass of rotting flesh and draining fluids. While sca…