Blog Archives

The rapid depletion of coral reefs could prove more damaging for small islands than sea level rise, according to recently published research. Coral reefs provide an important barrier for coastlines, creating friction that slows down and dissipates the energy of waves rushing in off the ocean.

But Daniel Harris, from the University of Queensland, said that with a lot of the world’s coral under threat or dying from climate change, this barrier could be rapidly lost.

Dr Harris, who studied the waves of Tahiti and Moorea, said the lack of coral could trigger a significant increase in wave size – on top of rising sea levels – which could damage vulnerable shores.

“And so that suggested that you don’t need to wait until the end of the century to have really devastating impacts on the coastline ...

New evidence is emerging that shows that the human population’s obsession with all things plastic is poisoning one of the world’s natural wonders: coral reefs. Much more than simply an object of beauty, coral reefs are living, breathing ecosystems, teeming with life. Although they occupy less than 0.1 per cent of the world’s ocean surface, they provide an essential home for 25 per cent of all marine life; they are also vital for protecting coastal communities, acting as natural barriers from cyclones and rising seas; and 275 million people depend directly on them for their food and livelihoods.

Yet coral reefs are under attack on a number of fronts. In the past 30 years, we have lost up to 50 per cent of the world’s corals from the effects of warming sea temperatures due to climate ch...

To most people, the ocean environment seems like one of serene silence. In reality, it’s a smorgasbord of sound. And not all of the noise is helpful to the marine life inhabiting it. In January, the Trump administration proposed opening up more than 90 percent of U.S. coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling. Seismic testing surveys would accompany that plan, threatening to make the ocean a much noisier and more dangerous place for marine mammals and other sea life.

Seismic testing generally involves an array of air guns pulled on the back of a large boat. The guns release bursts of highly pressurized air into the water, sending soundwaves to the ocean floor and back in order to detect reservoirs of oil and gas...

This week, Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet signed a decree allowing the creation of the Network of National Parks of Patagonia and the protection of marine areas in different areas of the South American country, in a move to boost her legacy two weeks before leaving power.

The marine areas contemplate the areas of the Juan Fernández Archipelago, Diego Ramírez Islands, Rapa Nui, Seno Almirantazgo and Tortel, totaling eight marine parks and six coastal marine areas of multiple, reaching 42.4 percent.

In all, protections added during her four-year term cover some 1.3 million square kilometers (509,000 square miles) of ocean.

The Rapa Nui area alone accounts for some 720,000 square kilometers home to at least 142 species of marine life found nowhere else, of which 27 are threatened or ...

Off the coast of Southeast Florida, a mysterious new disease is killing coral reefs, turning them white and leaving nothing but a skeleton behind. More than half of the state’s 330-year-old Coral Reef Tract, which stretches across 175 miles in the Florida Keys, is infected with the disease. It’s called “white syndrome” by scientists because white stripes or spots cover the coral, and it was discovered in fall 2014.

Throughout 2017, the disease spread to a point where half the coral at some sites were affected, even some that had been considered the most resilient and important for reef building, according to a newsletter by the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative, which helps raise awareness about Florida’s reefs.

The causes of the disease are still unknown, though researche...

In what is being hailed as a global first, Seychelles has agreed to swap parts of its debt in return for designating nearly a third of its waters as protected areas. The island nation will secure roughly 210,000 square kilometers (81,000 square miles) at the Aldabra Atoll, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, from fishing, oil exploration, and commercial development.

The debt-for-nature deal was brokered by NatureVest, the conservation investing unit of the US-based The Nature Conservancy. As part of the plan, the group will purchase up to $21.6 million of the nation’s over $400 million debt at a discount, and will redirect the payments from creditors to a newly-created local trust.

The trust will then use the payments to repay the initial capital raised and also fund marine conversation plans...

A team of scientists have discovered a new shark species, specifically the third kind of sixgill shark in the Atlantic Ocean. What differentiates the Atlantic sixgill shark from its cousins in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, and why are these sharks so special?

The Atlantic Sixgill Shark: A New Species
Through genetic testing, scientists confirmed the Atlantic sixgill shark is a new species that is different from the other kinds of sixgill shark found in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The other two species in the family are the bluntnose sixgill shark and the bigeyed sixgill shark.

“We showed that the sixgills in the Atlantic are actually very different from the ones in the Indian and Pacific Oceans on a molecular level, to the point where it is obvious that they’re a different sp...

Acidification will threaten sediments that are building blocks for reefs. Corals already face risks from ocean temperatures, pollution and overfishing.

“Coral reefs will transition to net dissolving before end of century,” the Australian-led team of scientists wrote in the U.S. journal Science. “Net dissolving” means reefs would lose more material than they gain from the growth of corals.

Carbon dioxide, the main man-made greenhouse gas, forms a weak acid in water and threatens to dissolve the reef sediments, made from broken down bits of corals and other carbonate organisms that accumulate over thousands of years, it said.

The sediments are 10 times more vulnerable to acidification than the tiny coral animals that also extract chemicals directly from the sea water to build stony s...

Plastic pollution is affecting marine life in some of the most remote parts of the Atlantic Ocean with almost three quarters of a sample of more than 230 deep-water fish collected by NUI Galway scientists having ingested plastic particles.

The contamination level among the fish species, located in the northwest Atlantic thousands of kilometres from land and 600m down in the ocean, is one of the highest reported frequencies of microplastic occurrence in fish worldwide, according to the study published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

Microplastics are small plastic fragments that commonly originate from the breakdown of larger plastic items entering the ocean...

Giants of the ocean were celebrated on World Whale Day, which aims to raise awareness of these magnificent creatures. The annual holiday was founded in Maui, Hawaii, in 1980, to honour humpback whales, which swim off its coast. It’s the main showcase of the Maui Whale Festival.

Every year, crowds flock to the island to join in the free all-day event, organised by the Pacific Whale Foundation. The fun starts with a parade including floats, costumed characters and children’s events, plus music from Hawaiian and international stars.

However, you don’t have to visit Maui to mark this special day...