On 1 July 2025, NIWA merged with GNS Science to become Earth Sciences New Zealand.

Oceans

NIWA aims to provide the knowledge needed for the sound environmental management of our marine resources.

  • Massive mudslides in Kaikōura Canyon destroy seabed life

    Media release
    Huge mudslides from November’s earthquakes have wiped out all organisms living in the seabed of the Kaikōura Canyon.
  • Critter of the Week: A squat lobster for a star!

    Squat lobsters are known for their lengthy eyelashes and come in many different sizes from the mighty Munidopsis aries (90mm carapace length) to some species which have bodies only a few millimetres long.
  • Geomorphology influences periphyton abundance

    Research Project
    This research project investigated whether the mechanisms for periphyton removal in rivers relate more directly to hydraulic and geomorphic conditions than flow metrics.
  • Critter of the Week – Aristotle's lantern: Celebrating the Aristotle Anniversary Year (2016)

    This year is the 2400th anniversary of the birth of Aristotle, a philosopher and scientist (384 BCE), who among other many great achievements was the first person to describe the structure, ecology, and diversity of sea urchins – way back in the 4th century BC.
  • Bountiful Bryozoans

    News article
    A new fully illustrated electronic identification guide, Bountiful Bryozoans, has just been released to help people identify this group of marine creatures in the wild.
  • Bountiful Bryozoans

    An interactive guide to the bryozoans of New Zealand
  • New e-guide on the common starfish of the Ross Sea region, Antarctica

    News article
    The seafloor of the Ross Sea region is covered in ice for much of the year, but many benthic sea creatures live and thrive there.
  • Amazing Antarctic Asteroids

    An interactive guide to the starfish of the Ross Sea
  • 2016 - Colville Ridge Geophysics voyage

    Voyage
    The main output of this voyage is providing data and fundamental base maps for future regional prospectivity surveys, tectonic plate reconstructions, and general understanding of the architecture of the Kermadec backarc.
  • On the road again

    We have reached the end of our sampling program up in the Kermadecs and we’re on our way home
  • It’s a small world after all

    For the last couple of days we have been sampling near L’Esperance Rock.