Nitrogen cycle in coastal waters: Hamburg Harbor becomes a nitrate hotspot

By Tim Schröder 3 August 2017(Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht) – Nitrogen compounds are an important factor in the production of algal biomass. The team led by biologist Kirstin Dähnke from the Institute of Coastal Research at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht has been carrying out extensive Elbe nitrogen measurements for this reason.These measurements have shown that regions upstream from […]

Gulf of Mexico dead zone is the largest ever measured

2 August 2017 (NOAA) – Scientists have determined this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone,” an area of low oxygen that can kill fish and marine life, is 8,776 square miles, an area about the size of New Jersey. It is the largest measured since dead zone mapping began there in 1985.The measured size is […]

Is deep sea mining vital for a greener future, even if it destroys ecosystems? “Mining will be the greatest assault on deep-sea ecosystems ever inflicted by humans”

By Damian Carrington 4 June 2017 (The Guardian) – Mining the deep ocean floor for valuable metals is both inevitable and vital, according to the scientists, engineers, and industrialists exploring the world’s newest mining frontier. The special metals found in rich deposits there are critical for smart electronics and crucial green technologies, such as solar […]

Jurassic drop in ocean oxygen lasted a million years

12 May 2017 (University of Exeter) – Dramatic drops in oceanic oxygen, which cause mass extinctions of sea life, come to a natural end – but it takes about a million years. The depletion of oxygen in the oceans is known as “anoxia”, and scientists from the University of Exeter have been studying how periods […]

Decades of data on world’s oceans reveal a troubling oxygen decline

ATLANTA, Georgia, 3 May 2017 (Georgia Tech) – A new analysis of decades of data on oceans across the globe has revealed that the amount of dissolved oxygen contained in the water – an important measure of ocean health – has been declining for more than 20 years. Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology looked […]

Thousands of starfish strand on Dutch beach

29 December 2016 (Dutch News) – Thousands of dead starfish have been washed up on the beach near the seaside resort of Callantsoog but only those close to beach pavilions are being cleared up. The dead sea creatures will be cleared from a 2km stretch of strand to stop the smell disturbing winter beach goers, […]

Up to 20,000 dead fish and other animals wash up on Nova Scotia coast

By Azadeh Ansari and Dave Alsup30 December 2016 (CNN) – The carcasses of thousands of sea creatures have mysteriously washed up on the western coast of Nova Scotia. As many as 20,000 fish, lobsters, starfish, scallops, crabs and other animals have turned up dead at Savory Park, Canadian authorities said. And they have no idea […]

Larger marine animals at higher risk of extinction, and humans are to blame

By Ker Than14 September 2016 (Stanford University) – An unprecedented pattern of extinction in the oceans today that selectively targets large-bodied animals over smaller creatures is likely driven by human fishing, according to a new Stanford-led study. “We’ve found that extinction threat in the modern oceans is very strongly associated with larger body size,” said […]

Photo gallery: Hermit crabs who live in trash

By Anika Burgess 6 September 2016 (Atlas Obscura) – With a new report released yesterday into the vast increases in ocean temperatures, human activity on marine life affects all ends of the food chain. Take, for example, the coenobita purpureus, or blueberry hermit crabs, of Okinawa. Like other hermit crabs, they also need shells to […]

Dead mussels ‘as far as the eye can see’ on Long Island Sound beach – ‘They’ve been hit with these consecutive heat waves that are just too hot for them’

By Grant Parpan24 August 2016 (Riverhead News Review) – David Gruner has been visiting the same private beach on the Long Island Sound in Jamesport for more than 50 years. On Wednesday afternoon, he witnessed something he’d never seen before. When Mr. Gruner walked down to the beach he found the shoreline covered in mussels […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial