Blog Archives

Japan’s 11 March mega-quake shifted the ocean floor sideways by more than 20m (65ft), according one instrument placed on the seabed off the nation’s coast.

This direct measurement exceeds the displacement suggested by some models built only from data gathered on land.

The figure was recorded by the Japan Coast Guard which maintains underwater geodetic equipment along the fault responsible for the giant tremor.

An upwards movement of 3m (10ft) was registered by the same instrument.

The data underlines once again the colossal nature of the Magnitude 9.0 quake and its associated tsunami.

“The scale is almost double that estimated only from the terrestrial data,” the coast guard’s Dr Mariko Sato told BBC News.

“Our results show how important offshore data are to know where and to what extent t...

Saturday afternoon, 10 scuba diving teams hit the water in search of lionfish as part of the first REEF/Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary lionfish derby of the season. By the end of the day, more than 500 of the invasive and predatory fish had been speared or netted by participants who traveled from throughout the Southeast for the event.

Lionfish are a growing problem throughout the Atlantic Coast, Florida Keys, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The flamboyant fish is easily spotted by its array of venomous spines. The lionfish, which reproduces at a spectacularly fast rate, is causing damage in local waters because it has no natural predators and its natural habitat is the South Pacific. Scientists have been studying the Lionfish problem for the last two years.

Officials from REEF and t...

Canada is falling badly behind other western countries in protecting its oceans, says a group of top Canadian marine scientists who are calling on the federal government to take action.

The 14 scientists, who released a report Monday at the International Marine Conservation Congress in Victoria, want new guidelines so at least 30 per cent of Canadian ocean territory can be protected from activities such as trawling and oil and gas exploration.

“Canada is way behind many other western countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, in protecting its marine ecosystems,” said Philip Dearden, University of Victoria geography professor and one of the signatories to the report.

“In our report, we offer concrete ways in which Canada can become one of the world’s leaders in ocean conservation,” he s...

Scientists have found eight potentially new species of reef fish and a potentially new species of bubble coral in waters surrounding the Indonesian island of Bali, according to Conservation International.

The fish and coral were found by a team of 10 scientists during a two-week marine survey that ended Wednesday, said Mark Erdmann, senior adviser for CI

Four hectares of coral reefs were damaged when a vessel carrying coal ran aground off the coast of Sarangani province in the Philippines.

The Panamanian-registered cargo vessel m/v Double Prosperity ran aground on Sunday at Bakud Reef off the coast of Kiamba town in Sarangani province, according to Sarangani Bay Protected Seascape area superintendent Dirie Macabaning.

Macabaning said his office initially placed the value of the damage caused by the incident on the reef at P30 million.

He said the reef is located 2.5 miles off the coast of Kiamba town in Sarangani province.

More than half of the m/v Double Prosperity remains stuck at a portion of Bakud Reef.

1 x 3m Nurse Shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum), 2 x other sharks, 1-2m in length. Sharks appeared in response to the cleaning of fish caught earlier in the day.

Can a 13-metre long beastie, all tentacles and suckers, be a conservation icon for our time.

Scientists are proposing that the giant squid Architeuthis be emblemised and celebrated to help promote the conservation of marine diversity.

The giant squid would become the giant panda of the seas; a single species that captures the imagination, and stands for the world in which it lives.

It would become a rallying point for those seeking to protect life under the waves, the fish and the whales, the corals and crustaceans, an abundance of marine invertebrates and creatures we perhaps have yet to discover.

It could even become a marketing tool, a brand, a philosophy.

Rather than have to make complex arguments about marine food webs, carrying capacities, life histories and bycatch, people could su...

Nearly half the fisherman in France’s main port for bluefin tuna fishing will be grounded for the 2011 season after the unrest in Libya caused fishing permits to be axed for their Libyan-owned boats.

Ten of the tuna ships operating in the Mediterranean port of Sete, some 185 km (115 miles) from the city of Toulouse, will be stuck because they are owned by Libyan companies with links to Muammar Gaddafi, who rebels are battling to overthrow.

The conflict led to a delay in Libya confirming its 2011 Atlantic bluefin tuna fishing quota with the Madrid-based International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which decided quotas late last year and awarded permits in mid-April. Libya’s quota was cancelled.

“Because of the war in Libya, around a hundred fisherman from Sete w...

Harbour seals can detect the fattest fish using just their whiskers, according to research.

Tests with a trained seal have revealed that the animals can sense underwater objects, even with their hearing and sight restricted.

The seal detected objects’ sizes and shapes by sensing differences in the trail of disturbance they made in the water.

Scientists suggest that seals use this ability to identify the best prey.

Dr Wolf Hanke and scientists from the Marine Science Centre at the University of Rostock, Germany, first showed how sensitive seals’ whiskers were last year.

They reported that a trained seal, Henry, was able to sense an artificial fish up to 100m (328ft) away using just his whiskers.

The researchers then focused their investigation on whether seals used their whiskers to discer...

Scientists are embarking on a two-month expedition in the Pacific aimed at finding ways to reduce the damaging accidental toll of tuna fishing.

They want to find techniques that help fishermen find the abundant skipjack tuna without also catching sharks, turtles, or threatened tuna species.

The scientists will sail on board a tuna purse-seine vessel from Ecuador.

Knowledge gained on the trip will be used to develop fishing techniques or new gear that are much more selective.

This could entail fishing at different times of day, at specific depths under the waves, or by more targeted use of fish aggregating devices (FADs).

“The overall objective is to explore some potential options for reducing the mortality of bigeye tunas and other ‘undesirable’ species while maximising catches of skipjack...