Science

Barely living "zombie" bacteria and other forms of life constitute an immense amount of carbon deep within Earth's subsurface—245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface, according to scientists nearing the end of a 10-year international collaboration to reveal Earth's innermost secrets.

Among the threatened corals of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural wonders of the world that has been ravaged by global warming, researchers have found a reason for optimism — or at least a reason not to despair completely.

SALEM — Oregon has a new playbook for preparing and responding to a major earthquake that dictates what should be tackled over time versus a list of tasks to get done. The playbook provides a two-week blueprint for the state’s response and expectations for prioritizing Oregon’s recovery from what would be the deadliest natural disaster in the U.S.

With warmer temperatures and increased rainfall due to climate change, there will likely be more “prolonged occurrences of low-oxygen ‘dead zones’” and “harmful, lengthy, and dense algae growth in the Great Lakes,” according to a federal report on climate change.

Shenzhen divers spark row over the role of human intervention in reef protection

Blue crabs are ecologically important and represent one of the most valuable fisheries in the United States.

Nitrogen fixation by marine microbes had been thought limited to warm waters, but an unusual type of nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria appears to be active globally

SCIENCE SEASON IN Antarctica begins in November, when noontime temperatures at McMurdo Station climb to a balmy 18 degrees Fahrenheit and the sun hangs in the sky all day and night. For a researcher traveling there from the United States, the route takes time as well as patience. The easiest way is to fly from Los Angeles to Christchurch, New Zealand—a journey of 17 hours, if you’re lucky—and then to McMurdo . . .

Researchers have found unprecedentedly high levels of nitrate, an essential plant nutrient, in streams and watersheds of Puerto Rico for a year after two consecutive major hurricanes in 2017. This high amount of nitrate may have important climate change implications that could harm forest recovery and threaten ecosystems along Puerto Rico's coastline by escalating algal blooms and dead zones.

A couple of degrees of temperature and a few inches of water might seem hardly worth noticing. But those slight changes are having and stand to have effects — subtle and significant, understood and still uncertain — on the state’s coastal bays and the estuaries, the marine life tied to them and the people who enjoy those resources.

When people think of coral reefs, they typically picture warm, clear waters with brightly colored corals and fishes. But other corals live in deep, dark, cold waters, often far from shore in remote locations. These varieties are just as ecologically important as their shallow water counterparts. They also are just as vulnerable to human activities like fishing and energy production.

Seagrasses are flowering marine plants that live in shallow coastal waters almost everywhere in the world. The more than 70 species of seagrass provide an important habitat for thousands of ocean animals, from tiny invertebrates, crabs, and turtles to large fish and birds.

It’s often argued that climate change is not a technological or engineering problem, it is a political problem. And it’s true. We have all the technology we need to power the world with renewables and stave off the worst of climate chaos. What we lack is the political will to take the kind of moonshot-scale action necessary to accomplish it.

SAVE the Bays environmental group believe the development of a land-based commercial coral farm in Freeport by the conservation group Coral Vita is a blessing for Grand Bahama.

WASHINGTON -- Lauren Alexander Augustine has been appointed executive director of the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For experts in the field of ocean mapping it is no small irony that we know more about the surfaces of the Moon and Mars than we do about our planet’s sea floor.

Killer whales are diving to record depths to pinch expensive catch from commercial fishing lines, expanding their role as an apex predator to the very depths of the ocean, Deakin researchers have found.

Surface melting across Greenland's mile-thick ice sheet began increasing in the mid-19th century and then ramped up dramatically during the 20th and early 21st centuries, showing no signs of abating, according to new research published Dec. 5, 2018, in the journal Nature.

Red tide is still plaguing coastal areas in Collier and Lee counties, but the outbreak is patchy and weaker than it was a few weeks ago.

The pattern of uneven sea level rise over the last quarter century has been driven in part by human-caused climate change, not just natural variability, according to a new study.

A new study shows that pulses of sinking debris carry large amounts of carbon to the deep seafloor, but are poorly represented in global climate models.

Jellyfish undergo an amazing metamorphosis, from tiny polyps growing on the seafloor to swimming medusae with stinging tentacles.

Whales some 33 million years ago were not polite diners. They lacked teeth, so like powerful, prehistoric vacuums, they sucked down entire fish and squid, swallowing them whole.

CYPREMORT POINT, LA. — Tommy Olander Jr. took his first baby steps on the deck of a 42-by-16-foot Lafitte skiff shrimp trawler. His dad, Thomas Olander, named the boat Tommy Boy after his son, now 25. “I’d rather be broke and shrimping than get out of it,” the younger Olander said, piloting his father’s boat in August around Vermilion Bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico by Louisiana.

Carl Wunsch continues to expand his foundational framework for understanding the behavior of worldwide oceans as a whole.

A team of researchers with the French National Centre for Scientific Research has found an example of environmental microplastics disrupting a predator-prey relationship.

USGS takes a deep dive into red tide and examines the relationship between USACE water management decisions on Lake Okeechobee, nutrient loading, and coastal red tide blooms. The paper also examines other factors impacting certain red tide species such as salinity. Great read on the science of red tide. (Scientific Investigations Report 2018–5092, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey)

Whenever we talk about the consequences of climate change, we’re talking about probability. Scientists present a rainbow of possible outcomes for our little experiment in fossil fuel consumption, some more likely than others. We’re used to thinking of that uncertainty as being driven by the physics of the natural world. The more we learn about heat absorption, fluid dynamics and the behavior of clouds, the better our understanding of climate as a system becomes. The more we know, the less uncertainty.

In a comprehensive study of healthy corals published Nov. 22 in the journal Nature Communications, a team of scientists from the University of Washington Bothell, Pennsylvania State University and Oregon State University report that coral bacteria are a surprisingly diverse bunch — and that different sections of the coral body can host unique communities of bacteria.

A new climate report released Friday by the Trump administration predicts significant -- and expensive -- impacts on the planet as a result of climate change. The threats from weather-related catastrophes are already clear: Stronger and more frequent hurricanes, deadly heat waves, and more intense destructive wildfires.

Inspired by Actinia, a sea organism that ensnares its prey with its tentacles, a team of researchers has developed a method for efficiently treating water. The research used a material known as a nanocoagulant to rid water of contaminants.

Ocean noise varies spatially and temporally and is driven by natural and anthropogenic processes. Increased ambient noise levels can cause signal masking and communication impairment, affecting fitness and recruitment success.

New research from North Carolina State University demonstrates that consumer-grade drones are effective tools for monitoring marine species across multiple sites in the wild. The work shows that the technology can be a valuable platform for scientists and conservationists interested in studying populations of sharks, rays, sea turtles and other marine megafauna.

The Beluga whale — a species mainly found in the Arctic Circle — has been recorded in Irish territorial waters as part of a groundbreaking three-year research project into our offshore habitats for marine wildlife.

Cynthia Heil will lead the newly-formed Red Tide Institute at Mote Marine Laboratory

MIAMI — There are no borders that separate the water, reefs and marine life off the coasts of Cuba and Florida, and that’s why scientists in both countries say they need to get along and collaborate.

More than 10,000 loggerhead sea turtles hatched this season at Cape Romano, almost twice as many as the previous record since monitoring began 12 years ago, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection reported this week.

NOAA scientists do good work.

One of the most important challenges researchers and managers confront in conservation ecology is predicting a population’s response to sub-lethal stressors. Such predictions have been particularly elusive when assessing responses of large marine mammals to past anthropogenic pressures. Recently developed techniques involving baleen whale earplugs combine age estimates with cortisol measurements to assess spatial and temporal stress/stressor relationships.

Scientists have discovered that a common coral species can deal with the stresses of climate change, and could be key in restoring coral reefs.

Climate change means the low-lying Marshall Islands must consider drastic measures, including building new artificial islands.

From October 30 - November 20, 2018, NOAA and its partners are conducting a telepresence-enabled ocean exploration expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to collect critical baseline information on unknown and poorly understood deepwater areas surrounding Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A NOAA ROV filmed a Rhopalonematid jelly hovering just above the seafloor.

The Gulf of Maine’s location at the meeting point of two major currents, as well as its shallow depth and shape, makes it especially susceptible to warming.

Artificial Intelligence has been used for everything from teaching computers to play chess to helping speed ride-sharing services on thei rway. And now one government agency is using it to track humpback whales in the Pacific.

McGill scientists discovered that carbon dioxide also has begun to drift to the ocean bottom, dissolving the very materials that help put the brakes on acidification.

A pair of divers captured amazing footage of a surprise encounter that left them “incredulous and elated” that such a creature existed.

An unusual glass sponge population off Nova Scotia’s coast has endured more than a century of temperature and salinity changes, researchers from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography have found. But exactly how these deep sea organisms have toughed it out in an area known as the Emerald Basin remains a mystery.

Heat is transported through the ocean by a deep-ocean circulation system, known as the global heat conveyor belt, which constantly circulates water around the globe and helps to balance the earth's climate.

Scientists will continue the work of the late Ruth Gates to develop corals that are more resistant to the effects of climate change and create reefs that provide natural coastal protection.

Add sea squirts — a variety of small, tube-like marine creatures that live bunched together in colonies — to the list of species that seem to be thriving in the warming waters off the Maine coast.

Workers on an oil rig peered through dense fog and reported that the waves were cresting higher than 25 metres

What do a billionaire real estate mogul, a wealth management executive and a Republican congresswoman have in common? Living and working in South Florida, they share concerns about the impacts that a changing climate — and rising seas — may pose to the area and its economy. Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article221677295.html#storylink=cpy

Located in the center of the Pacific Ocean 124 miles from land, the Mariana Trench is the deepest natural point on Earth. The closest thing to the “middle of nowhere,” it takes days to get there and days to get back. For decades the trench has been shrouded in mystery with large portions of it unexplored.

Researchers with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Princeton University have walked back scientific findings published last month that showed oceans have been heating up dramatically faster than previously thought as a result of climate change.

IT WASN’T A whodunnit. Last year’s unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Houston were the proximate result of Hurricane Harvey, a massive storm born northeast of Venezuela and reborn in the Gulf of Mexico, where it rapidly intensified, made landfall over Houston, and then stayed—parked, as it were, for five days. Harvey was, however, something of a whydunnit. Why did the storm drop more than four feet of rain on the city?

The Marine Institute of Ireland and the Geological Survey of Ireland captured drone footage of a rare shark nursery 200 miles off Ireland's western coast. Drone footage of a rare shark nursery, found 200 miles off west of Ireland, has been revealed. It's being called a discovery on a "scale not previously documented in Irish waters."

Aquarium announces plans for new sea otter facility and research group convenes in Newport to talk of future sea otter reintroduction in Oregon.

San Diego researchers are hoping a sophisticated set of experiments will give them a better understanding of how the ocean helps modulate the planet’s climate. Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists just landed a second multimillion-dollar, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation so they can get a better understanding of the ocean’s effect on the atmosphere.

Today, Paul G. Allen Philanthropies and a consortium of partners, including Carnegie, unveiled the Allen Coral Atlas, a pioneering effort that uses high-resolution satellite imagery and advanced analytics to map and monitor the world's coral reefs in unprecedented detail. At launch, the Allen Coral Atlas offers the highest-resolution, up-to-date global image of the world's coral reefs ever captured, and the first detailed maps showing the composition and structure of five important reefs located throughout the world.

It has been almost a decade since the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill. Described as the worst environmental disaster in the United States, nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil oozed into the Gulf of Mexico, severely degrading the marine ecosystem immediately surrounding the spill site and directly impacting coastal habitats along 1,773 kilometers of shoreline. About 10 million gallons remain in the sediment at the bottom of the Gulf and may continue to cause severe physiological damages to marine life, including impairment of sensory systems.

Microplastics have been recorded in a range of zooplankton species, and they are already causing problems for these tiny - but vitally important - animals, even before the plastic particles make their way through the food web. A new review suggests that, to further our understanding of when and why zooplankton munch on microplastics, experiments need to better represent the tiny plastic particles actually found in the marine environment.

The worst predicted impacts of climate change are starting to happen — and much faster than climate scientists expected

Grants will focus on education around sea level rise, water quality, and air pollution

Registration has opened for Oregon Sea Grant's annual State of the Coast conference, which will be held Oct. 27 in Coos Bay.

Prior research has suggested that mussels are a robust indicator of plastic debris and particles in marine environments. A new study says that's not the case because mussels are picky eaters and have an inherent ability to choose and sort their food.

Scientists say the population of North Atlantic right whales could decline to levels not seen since 1990 in as few as 12 years.

Environmental sciences professor Ed Laws received the Friendship Award from the People’s Republic of China on Sept. 29 for his coastal wetlands research.

Jay Ash, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development announced a $300,000 commitment toward the effort to propel the “Blue Economy” forward at UMass Dartmouth Monday evening.