Oceans

NIWA is contributing to an international effort to help developing countries reduce the impact of biofouling on aquatic-based industries and environments.

Our team onboard RV Tangaroa are equipped with all the tech and tools they need to explore the undersea changes caused by the devastating volcanic eruption in Tonga earlier this year.

We have sampled 11 stations today, with different pieces of equipment, starting with rock dredges on a ridge close to Hunga Ha’apai. The samples taken returned a trove of rock specimens that got the geologist onboard excited.

The January eruption of the Tongan volcano Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai triggered tsunamis as far away as the Caribbean. NIWA scientists are onboard RV Tangaroa surveying the ocean around the volcano, working to understand the largest eruption of its kind since 1981 so they can help increase our knowledge about similar volcanoes around the world.

You’ll be blown away by what these women in science are up to onboard this RV Tangaroa voyage to the Tasman Sea.

NIWA and The Nippon Foundation are undertaking a mission to discover the undersea impacts of the recent Tongan volcanic eruption.

New research from the Deep South Challenge: Changing with our Climate and NIWA shows that New Zealand could experience very long and “very severe” marine heatwaves by the end of the century.

There is increasing global concern about the presence of plastic pollution in our oceans.

NIWA scientists and Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) have used satellite technology to chart the Cook Islands’ seafloor in never-before-seen detail. The work was done as part of Seabed 2030 - a collaborative project to produce a definitive map of the world ocean floor by 2030.

A six-metre-long autonomous vessel is equipped with artificial intelligence and a range of data gathering equipment, including a battery powered echosounder that can estimate the size of fish populations.

A robot sea craft is the latest tool NIWA scientists are using to help them count fish.

The Seabed 2030 South and West Pacific Ocean Data Center is one of four global Regional Centres, each being responsible for data gathering and mapping in their territory.