By Andrea Germanos A team of scientists issued a stark warning Tuesday that the possibility of averting an oil spill bigger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe and “disastrous environmental and humanitarian consequences” posed by an abandoned oil tanker in the Red Sea are “quickly disappearing.” At issue is the corroding Safer, moored off the […]
Australian scientists have discovered a massive detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It is the eighth detached reef discovered in the northern Great Barrier Reef and the first to be discovered in over 120 years. According to The Guardian, detached reefs are not part of the main body of the Great Barrier Reef […]
The Great Barrier Reef has lost more than 50 percent of its coral in the last 25 years, and the climate crisis is to blame. Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoralCoE) made an in-depth study of how coral communities and their colony sizes had changed between 1995 and 2017 […]
At least 17 dead dolphins washed up on Mauritius’ beaches Wednesday, raising questions about what effect the oil spilled from the Japanese cargo tanker MV Wakashio, which ran aground on July 25, is having on marine life surrounding the Indian Ocean island-nation, according to Reuters. As thousands of tons of fuel spilled into the ocean, […]
The environmental disaster that Mauritius is facing is starting to appear as its pristine waters turn black, its fish wash up dead, and its sea birds are unable to take flight, as they are limp under the weight of the fuel covering them. For all the damage to the centuries-old coral that surrounds the tiny […]
By Shawna Foo Anyone who’s tending a garden right now knows what extreme heat can do to plants. Heat is also a concern for an important form of underwater gardening: growing corals and “outplanting,” or transplanting them to restore damaged reefs. The goal of outplanting is to aid coral reefs’ natural recovery process by growing […]
The Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, renowned for its coral reefs, is facing an unprecedented ecological catastrophe after a tanker ran aground offshore and began leaking oil. The 984-foot MV Wakashio ran aground on July 25 and began to break up due to rough waters, The Guardian reported. It contained about 220.5 tons of diesel […]
By Johan Augustin In a lab on Australia’s east coast, scientists are concocting what they hope will be the solution to the steadily worsening problem of coral bleaching. Few people understand the Great Barrier Reef, and the challenges it faces, better than the scientists at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). And events of […]
By JoAnn Adkins A landmark study by Global FinPrint reveals sharks are absent on many of the world’s coral reefs, indicating they are functionally extinct — too rare to fulfill their normal role in the ecosystem. Of the 371 reefs surveyed in 58 countries, sharks were not observed on nearly 20 percent, indicating a widespread […]