Search Results for: ocean

The oceans have their desert zones, in other words areas poor in nutrients and unfavourable for phytoplankton to develop. Half of the southern Pacific thus consists of great expanses of warm water with an average temperature of 28 °C (a greater surface area than Europe), which receives no input of deep-source cold water, rich in nutrient salts.

However, in 2000 analyses of satellite observations on the colour of the ocean conducted by American scientists revealed unusually high concentrati

Medium to large earthquakes occurring along the central San Andreas Fault appear to cluster at regular three-year intervals – a previously unnoticed cycle that provides some hope for forecasting larger quakes along this and other California faults.

A study by University of California, Berkeley, seismologists shows a higher probability of moderate to large quakes – magnitude 4, 5 and 6 – just as the frequency of smaller quakes, called microquakes, begins to increase along the northern half of

Sea water being churned in the ocean off Antarctica may be having a greater effect on global patterns of ocean movement than previously thought, according to new research reported in this week’s edition of the international journal Science (9 January 2004).

The research, lead by scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA), shows that “remarkably intense and widespread” mixing of water in the Southern Ocean occurs over large regions where the ocean bed is rough.

The main aut

New findings pose a challenge for cold dark matter theory

“The universe is always more complicated than our cosmological theories would have it,” says Nigel Sharp, program officer for extra-galactic astronomy and cosmology at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Witness a collection of new and recently announced discoveries that, taken together, suggest a considerably more active and fastmoving epoch of galaxy formation in the early universe than prevailing theories had called for.

Eating salmon may pose health risks

A study of more than two metric tons of North American, South American and European salmon has shown that PCBs and other environmental toxins are present at higher levels in farm-raised salmon than in their wild counterparts.

Researchers at Indiana University and five other research centers say increased toxin levels in farm-raised salmon may pose health risks to people who eat the economically important fish. Their study, which appears in

Device can save industry $2 to $3 billion in annual damages from collisions

FarSounder, Inc. and a University of Rhode Island researcher have begun commercial production of the FS-3, the first 3-dimensional, forward-looking sonar designed as an aid to marine navigation.

With a range of 1,000 feet, a 90 degree field of view, and a refresh rate of just two seconds, the device will allow marine vessels to avoid collisions with submerged obstacles and potentially save the marine