atlantic ocean

Scientists Map Largest Deep-Sea Coral Reef Off Atlantic Coast

Scientists Map Largest Deep-Sea Coral Reef Off Atlantic Coast

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in mapping the largest deep-sea coral reef in the world, which runs hundreds of miles off the Atlantic coast of the United States. The massive 6.4-million-acre reef is bigger than the state of Vermont, a press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. “It’s eye-opening […]

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    Trump Administration One Step Closer to Approving Seismic Airgun Blasting

    Trump Administration One Step Closer to Approving Seismic Airgun Blasting

    The Trump administration issued Monday a draft Incidental Harassment Authorizations for seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean, an extremely loud and dangerous process used to search for oil and gas deposits deep below the ocean’s surface. By issuing these draft Incidental Harassment Authorizations for public comment, Oceana said the federal government is giving another […]

    Seismic Testing to Begin in Atlantic Ocean in Push for Offshore Drilling

    Seismic Testing to Begin in Atlantic Ocean in Push for Offshore Drilling

    The Interior Department announced it is moving forward with seismic surveys in the Atlantic Ocean following President Donald Trump‘s executive order last month to aggressively expand offshore drilling in protected areas off the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. Six permit applications by energy companies—ones that were rejected by the Obama administration—are being reviewed by the department. […]

    Obama Denies All Pending Permits for Seismic Airgun Blasting in Atlantic Ocean

    Obama Denies All Pending Permits for Seismic Airgun Blasting in Atlantic Ocean

    By Claire Douglass The Obama administration formally denied today all pending permits to conduct seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. Seismic airgun blasting, an extremely loud and dangerous process used to search for oil and gas deposits deep below the ocean’s surface, was originally proposed in an area twice the size of California, stretching […]

    Burning Less Coal = 19% Less Mercury in the Tuna You Eat

    Burning Less Coal = 19% Less Mercury in the Tuna You Eat

    I couldn’t, post-election, muster a plausibly big enough piece of good news to warrant a Thanksgiving blog—but then this morning one arrived. In an astonishingly short eight years, as a result of tougher emission rules on power plants and a declining use of coal, concentrations of mercury in Atlantic Bluefin tuna, the sushi sort, dropped […]

    Warming Atlantic Ocean Leads to Rise in Marine Bacteria

    Warming Atlantic Ocean Leads to Rise in Marine Bacteria

    By Robert McSweeney Rising sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are likely to be behind a recent surge in cases of diarrhoeal diseases from marine bacteria in northern Europe and the U.S. East Coast, a new study says. In their analysis that goes back to 1958, the researchers show that levels of Vibrio bacteria—which […]