Prior to 15 January, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai was a little-known undersea South Pacific volcano with a long name. Within 24 hours, it was a global phenomenon – the site of the largest atmospheric explosion in almost 150 years. Jessica Rowley looks at why a remote Tongan volcano took the world by storm.
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.
Despite many centuries of maritime exploration, only a fraction of our planet's seafloor has been observed. NIWA Deepsea Scientist Di Tracey tells us what it feels like to probe deep beneath the waves to see what's living on the ocean floor.
NIWA scientists have worked for many years in Antarctica. These photographs illustrate some of our work in this amazing and scientifically significant place.
Prior to 15 January, Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai was a little-known undersea South Pacific volcano with a long name. Within 24 hours, it was a global phenomenon – the site of the largest atmospheric explosion in almost 150 years. Jessica Rowley looks at why a remote Tongan volcano took the world by storm.
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.
We are now four weeks into the Ross Sea Life in a Changing Climate (ReLiCC) 2021 voyage on RV Tangaroa and our time in the Ross Sea is rapidly coming to an end.
NIWA’s flagship research vessel Tangaroa leaves soon on a six-week voyage to Antarctica, making it one of the few full scientific expeditions to the continent since the global outbreak of COVID-19.
A six-metre long orange underwater robot is flying through the Kaikōura Canyon for the next month collecting information on how the canyon has changed since the 2016 earthquake.
At the bottom of the Southern Ocean, near Cape Adare in East Antarctica, lies an undersea ridge which until this month was only known by its co-ordinates: -71.2132 latitude, 172.1649 longitude.
Combining multibeam bathymetry, specialist GIS software and high-resolution camera footage, NIWA has produced startlingly vivid three-dimensional photo-mosaics of undersea habitats.
Understanding how the Antarctic oceans work is vital to predicting the world’s future climate and the implications of climate change for humankind and the planet.
The first major review in three decades of physical oceanography in New Zealand shelf-seas (waters under 200 m depth) has just been published in The Royal Society Te Apārangi New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research.
The Ross Sea Region Research and Monitoring Programme (Ross-RAMP) is a five-year research programme funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and run by NIWA to evaluate the effectiveness of the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area.
From 8 Jan - 27 Feb 2019 RV Tangaroa is undertaking a six-week research voyage to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. On board scientists, supported by 19 crew members, will be studying ocean, atmosphere and ecosystem processes with the focus on establishing monitoring programmes for the newly created Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area (MPA).