Search Results for: Ocean

Over 35 million could be affected

The potential for devastating tsunamis in the northern Caribbean is high, say marine scientists, based on their analysis of historical data since the arrival of Columbus. Several natural phenomena could trigger giant tsunamis, they say, with effects felt in the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and along the east and Gulf coasts of the United States.

Nancy Grindlay and Meghan Hearne of the University of North Carolina Wilmingto

The highest levels of silver contamination ever observed in the open ocean turned up in samples collected during a survey of the North Pacific in 2002. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, measured silver concentrations 50 times greater than the natural background level. Though still well below levels that would be toxic to marine life, this contamination of what had been considered relatively pristine waters highlights the increasingly global impact of industrial emission

WWF and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) published results of scientific assessment of the “Sakhalin-2” oil and gas project’s (Sakhalin Energy company) impact on the Okhotsk-Korean population of grey whales. The findings are distressing: if only three females perish, this grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus) population will inevitably disappear.

An independent expert group of researchers has confirmed ecologists’ confidence: the “Sakhalin-2” oil and gas project threa

Data may help develop strategies for mining natural gas locked up in seafloor sediments

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have recreated the high-pressure, low-temperature conditions of the seafloor in a tabletop apparatus for the study of methane-hydrates, an abundant but currently out-of-reach source of natural gas trapped within sediments below the ocean floor. Michael Eaton, a Stony Brook University graduate student working for Brook

Ecologists know that when it comes to habitats, size matters, and now a new study finds that contrary to earlier beliefs, that maxim holds true right down to the tiny plants at the bottom of many oceanic and freshwater food chains.

The study, conducted by University of Florida, University of Kansas and University of Texas researchers, is important because it shows that tiny microbes follow the same diversity patterns as larger organisms, said Robert D. Holt, a UF professor of zoolog

Researchers have long suspected that fertilizer runoff from big farms can trigger sudden explosions of marine algae capable of disrupting ocean ecosystems and even producing “dead zones” in the sea. Now a new study by Stanford University scientists presents the first direct evidence linking large-scale coastal farming to massive algal blooms in the sea.

Writing in the March 10 issue of the journal Nature, the authors conclude that some highly productive regions of the ocean are mu