Ocean Sciences

GeoTalk: A new view on how ocean currents move

Olivia Trani June 15, 2018

Meet Jan Zika, winner of the 2018 Ocean Sciences Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award, pictured here on a research vessel in the Southern Ocean. Credit: Jan Zika.

Geotalk is a regular feature highlighting early career researchers and their work. In this interview we speak to Jan Zika, an oceanographer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. This year he was recognized for his contributions to ocean dynamics research as the winner of the 2018 Ocean Sciences Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award. First, could you introduce your ...[Read More]

Top ten tourist beaches threatened by tsunamis

Olivia Trani May 23, 2018

A street in Phuket, Thailand after the 2004 tsunami. Six months after the tsunami, a quarter of the islands's hotels closed. (Image Credit: Alonso de Mendoza / Wikimedia Commons)

December 2004 saw one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. 228,000 people were killed when an earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered tsunami waves up to 30 m high. The destruction was extreme as the waves hit 14 different countries around the Indian Ocean. Economic losses totalled over 10 billion US dollars. The tourism industry in particular suff ...[Read More]

Plate Tectonics and Ocean Drilling – Fifty Years On

Tim Middleton May 16, 2018

Glomar Challenger, the DSDP research vessel that found conclusive evidence of seafloor spreading. (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

What does it take to get a scientific theory accepted? Hard facts? A strong personality? Grit and determination? For many Earth Scientists today it can be hard to imagine the academic landscape before the advent of plate tectonics. But it was only fifty years ago that the theory really became cemented as scientific consensus. And the clinching evidence was found in the oceans. Alfred Wegener had p ...[Read More]

Underwater robot shares ocean secrets

Sara Mynott April 20, 2018

A seaglider being launched. Credit: University of East Anglia.

Buoyancy-driven drones are helping scientists paint a picture of the ocean with sound. Around the world, silent marine robots are eavesdropping on the ocean and its inhabitants. The robots can travel 1000 metres beneath the surface and cover thousands of kilometres in a single trip, listening in on the ocean as they go. These bright yellow bots, known as Seagliders, are about the size of a diver, ...[Read More]