An international team of marine scientists returns to the Chatham Islands next week hoping to fit satellite tags on up to 13 great white sharks. The tags will allow the scientists to track the sharks' movements for up to nine months.
A NIWA scientist has used sophisticated sonar technology to reveal a ghost-like image of the Mikhail Lermontov lying in its watery grave in the Marlborough Sounds.
A major collaborative effort involving French and New Zealand researchers will be delving in mud beneath the seafloor this month, looking for clues about past and future climate change and its various effects on the seafloor.
Scientists from NIWA have developed the first fisheries assessment for Antarctic toothfish, and the first for any exploratory Antarctic fishery. The 2005–06 quota for the Ross Sea Antarctic toothfish fishery, which opened on 1 December, has taken account of this new assessment.
18 December 2005 The multibeam acoustic mapping was conducted by NIWA, with funding from the Foundation for Research, Science & Technology. NIWA marine geologist, Dr Helen Neil, says the existence of the canyons has been known for a long time, but until now they've been drawn as more or less straight lines on the map. 'What we've found is that the canyons and channels are incredibly complicated. Near shore, the upper reaches meander over a 'river' bed up to 20 kilometres wide. Further out to sea, the channel is more than 1000 metres below the surrounding seafloor in places.
Climate scientist Doctor Jim Renwick of NIWA has been awarded the Kidson medal by the Meteorological Society at the Royal Society of New Zealand's Awards held at Te Papa on the 16th of November.
Two fossils discovered in the Ormond Valley, near Gisborne, have been identified as a mysterious extinct native fish, the grayling or upokororo. They represent the first known fossils of New Zealand grayling.
Scientists from NIWA will be diving in Waikawa Marina, near Picton, on Friday 14 October to check for the presence of an invasive sea squirt, known as the clubbed tunicate (or Styela clava). The work is being conducted for Biosecurity New Zealand so that they can assess the need for further investigation.
Scientists from NIWA are diving in Waitemata Harbour to establish precisely how far an invasive sea squirt, known as the clubbed tunicate (or Styela clava), has spread.
Glaciers in New Zealand’s Southern Alps gained ice mass again in the past year. Fifty glaciers are monitored annually by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA).
A paper to be published in the prestigious science journal, Nature, this week offers a rare piece of good news on climate change but signals that the atmosphere may be more variable than previously suspected.