Search Results for: Ocean

Local fisheries part of bigger cycle affecting entire Pacific Ocean

In the late 1930’s, California’s sardines supported the biggest fishery in the western hemisphere, with more than half a million tons of fish caught each year. By the mid-1950s, the sardines had virtually disappeared. Although fishing pressure may have played a part in this process, new research published in the current issue of Science indicates that the sardines’ demise was part of a 50-year cycle tha

Using a state-of-the-art computer model of the lunar interior, geophysicists at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that a mighty burp early in the moon’s history could account for some of its geologic mysteries.

The burp of hot rock, like a blob rising to the top of a lava lamp, would have lifted a blanket covering the moon’s core, allowing the core to cool quickly enough to produce a magnetic field.

The moon has long since cooled off and the global magne

Unless the pace of global warming is abated, polar bears could disappear within 100 years, says a University of Alberta expert in Arctic ecosystems.

While it has been known for some time that the polar bear is in trouble, new research shows that Arctic ice–the polar bear’s primary habitat–is melting much faster than scientists had believed, says U of A biologist Dr. Andrew Derocher.

“The climate predictions coming out are showing massive changes in sea-ice distribution,” sa

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered another fingerprint of human effects on global climate.

Recent research has shown that increases in the height of the tropopause over the past two decades are directly linked to ozone depletion and increased greenhouse gases.

The tropopause is the transition zone between the lowest layer of the atmosphere — the turbulently-mixed troposphere — and the more stable stratosphere. The tropopause lies rough

A new study has discovered an abundance of microbial life deep beneath the ocean floor in ancient basalt that forms part of the Earth’s crust, in research that once more expands the realm of seemingly hostile or remote environments in which living organisms can apparently thrive.

The research was done off the coast of Oregon near a sea-floor spreading center on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, by scientists from Oregon State University and several other institutions. It will be published Friday

Rocks deposited by glaciers on mountain ranges in West Antarctica have given scientists the most direct evidence yet that parts of the ice sheet are on a long-term, natural trajectory of melting.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been melting and contributing water continuously to the ocean for the last 10,000 years and is likely to keep doing so, says John Stone, University of Washington associate professor of Earth and space sciences.

Measuring and understanding changes in the Eart