Summaries | Headlines

Saving Microscopic Threatened Species (October 2, 2007) -- The Smithsonian's National Zoo recently acquired 12,000 new animals -- microscopic Elkhorn coral larvae harvested by National Zoo scientists in Puerto Rico -- as part of an international ... > full story

Imperiled Reefs In Florida Keys Under Study (September 18, 2007) -- Scientists and educators from NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program embarked on a nine-day mission to the world's only undersea scientific facility on Sept. 17. While living underwater in the ... > full story

Coral Reef Fish Harbor An Unexpectedly High Biodiversity Of Parasites (September 13, 2007) -- A grouper fish found off New Caledonia was found to be parasitized by 12 species of microscopic monogenean worms. This diversity of parasites has just been confirmed also in the malabar grouper, ... > full story

Weird 'Engine Of The Reef' Revealed (August 31, 2007) -- A team of coral researchers has taken a major stride towards revealing the workings of the mysterious 'engine' that drives Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and corals the world over. The science has ... > full story

Corals And Climate Change (August 23, 2007) -- A modest new lab at the Rosenstiel School is the first of its kind to tackle the global problem of climate change impacts on corals. Fully operational this month, this new lab has begun to study how ... > full story

Keeping On Top Of Wildlife Threats (August 20, 2007) -- One of Australia's greatest conservation challenges in protecting the Great Barrier Reef and other natural assets is staying one jump ahead of both the movement of protected species and the emergence ... > full story

Innovative Tagging Technique May Help Researchers Better Protect Fish Stocks (August 13, 2007) -- Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are often hailed as a way to halt serious declines in the abundance of marine species that have been over-fished. But even as nations begin to set aside protected ... > full story

What We Can Learn From The Biggest Extinction In The History Of Earth (August 10, 2007) -- Approximately 250 million years ago, vast numbers of species disappeared from Earth. This mass-extinction event may hold clues to current global carbon cycle changes, according to ... > full story

Indo-Pacific Coral Reefs Disappearing More Rapidly Than Expected (August 9, 2007) -- Corals in the central and western Pacific ocean are dying faster than previously thought, researchers have found. Nearly 600 square miles of reef have disappeared per year since the late 1960s, twice ... > full story

Waters Off Washington State Only Second Place In World Where Glass Sponge Reefs Found (August 3, 2007) -- Scientists have discovered large colonies of glass sponges thriving on the seafloor 30 miles off the coast of Washington. The species of glass sponges capable of building reefs were thought extinct ... > full story

Oil Spill Clean-up Agents Threaten Coral Reefs (July 31, 2007) -- In a setback for efforts to protect endangered coral reefs from oil spills, researchers report that oil dispersants -- the best tool for treating oil spills in tropical areas --are significantly more ... > full story

Coral Reef Fish Need Decades Or Longer To Recover (July 13, 2007) -- In the longest running study on how fish populations in coral reef systems recover from heavy exploitation, researchers have found that the fish can recover, but they need lots of time -- decades in ... > full story

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Environmental effects of fishing -- Environmental impacts of fishing are the ecological changes brought about on the wider environment of the growth in global demand for fish as a food source, and to a lesser extent, for the aquarium ... > full article

Artificial reef -- An artificial reef is a man-made, underwater structure, typically built for the purpose of promoting marine life in areas of generally featureless bottom. Artificial reefs may also serve to improve ... > full article

Coral -- Corals are marine animals from the class Anthozoa and exist as small sea anemone-like polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals. The group includes the important reef builders that ... > full article

Ocean acidification -- Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 1751 and 2004 ... > full article

Limestone -- Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite (calcium carbonate: CaCO₃). Limestones often contain variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or flint, as ... > full article

Seahorse -- Hippocampus is a genus of fish known as Seahorses (family Syngnathidae). Seahorses range in size from 16 mm (the recently discovered Hippocampus denise) to 35 cm. They are notable for being one of ... > full article

Giant clam -- The Giant Clam (Tridacna gigas) is the largest living bivalve mollusc. One of a number of large clam species native to the shallow coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, they can weigh ... > full article

Exxon Valdez -- Exxon Valdez was the original name of an oil tanker owned by the former Exxon Corporation. It gained widespread infamy after the March 24, 1989 oil spill in which the tanker hit Prince William ... > full article

Beach -- A beach or strand is a geological formation consisting of loose rock particles such as sand, shingle, cobble, or even shell along the shoreline of a body of water. There are several conspicuous parts ... > full article

Coast -- The coast is defined as the part of the land adjoining or near the ocean. A coastline is properly, a line on a map indicating the disposition of a coast but the word is often used to refer to the ... > full article

Jurassic -- The Jurassic period is a major unit of the geologic timescale that extends from about 200 Ma (million years ago) at the end of the Triassic to 146 Ma at the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic ... > full article

Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 -- The Labor Day Hurricane was a very compact, intense hurricane that formed in the North Atlantic during August 1935. It remains the strongest hurricane on record to have struck the United States, and ... > full article

Mantle plume -- A mantle plume is an upwelling of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle. As the heads of mantle plumes can partly melt when they reach shallow depths, they are thought to be the cause of ... > full article

Desalination -- Desalination or desalinization refers to any of several processes that remove the excess salt and other minerals from water in order to obtain fresh water suitable for animal consumption or ... > full article

Whale shark -- The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a distinctively-marked member of the subclass Elasmobranchii of the class Chondrichthyes. It is the largest shark and also the largest ... > full article

Sedimentary rock -- Sedimentary rock is one of the three main rock groups (along with igneous and metamorphic rocks) and is formed in four main ways: by the deposition of the weathered remains of other rocks (known as ... > full article

Hurricane Mitch -- Hurricane Mitch was one of the most powerful hurricanes ever observed, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 ... > full article

Mangrove -- Mangrove are woody trees or shrubs that grow in coastal habitats for which the term mangrove swamp also would apply. Mangrove plants occupy shallow water and intertidal zones in tropical and ... > full article

Earth science -- Many scientists are now starting to use an approach known as Earth system science which treats the entire Earth as a system in its own right, which evolves as a result of positive and negative ... > full article

Cretaceous -- The Cretaceous period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic period, about 146 million years ago (Ma), to the beginning of the Paleocene epoch ... > full article