Search Results for: ocean

The United States exports nitrogen pollution beyond its borders, and some of this nitrogen may end up in Western Europe, according to a recent data analysis by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of New Hampshire. Most of the nitrogen pollution produced in Western Europe is deposited within its own boundaries, the authors found. The findings are an important step in quantifying total U.S. pollution export for policy makers. The study was published

A different style of coastal barrier islands that forms under lower-energy conditions than classic ocean-facing barriers, such as North Carolina’s Outer Banks, has been identified by coastal geological researchers at Duke University and the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. The new style of islands is typically found in protected bays and lagoons.

“This is a major and important recognition,” said Orrin Pilkey, a geology professor emeritus at Duke’s Nicholas

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