Satellite technology is informing a global coral reef monitoring system and providing imagery that will help scientists understand the current health of the reef and better monitor its change over time. This fall, five pilot sites were developed in order to refine mapping methods, including Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia; Moorea, French Polynesia; Lighthouse Reef, Belize; West Hawaii Island,
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The Sculpture Coralarium is an art installation in the center of the largest developed coral lagoon in the Maldives, on the island resort of Fairmont Sirru Fen Fushi. The artwork is a semi-submerged tidal gallery that exhibits a series of sculptural artworks on the skyline, inter-tidal area and seabed. The 200-ton tidal building is cube shaped, six meters tall, with its
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On May 3, 2018 the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupted. Over the following months, Liquid Robotics Wave Gliders were deployed to capture live ocean data close to where lava was flowing into the ocean from the volcano. By using unmanned technology, scientists had the rare opportunity to study the effects of the lava entering the ocean, the plume it creates
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The crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star completed their mission Tuesday, Feb. 6 in support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) after cutting a resupply channel through 15 miles of Antarctic ice in the Ross Sea and escorting supply vessels to the continent. The Polar Star sailed from Seattle to assist in the annual delivery of operating supplies and fuel for
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The European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite and its Copernicus Sentinel-1 missions have been used to measure subtle changes in the elevation and flow of ice shelves that, in turn, reveal how huge canyons are forming underneath. Warm bottom ocean water is entering the cavity under Antarctica’s Dotson ice shelf and is stirred by Earth’s rotation. This is causing one side
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NASA’s launch of the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) in 1997 began what is now a continuous, global view of both land and ocean life. A new animation captures the entirety of this 20-year record, made possible by multiple satellites, compressing a decades-long view of life on Earth into a captivating few minutes. Watch the full video and read more
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