oceanography
September 4, 2014
Predicting when toxic algae will reach Washington and Oregon coasts
Better understanding of how a deadly algae grows offshore and gets carried to Pacific Northwest beaches has led to a computer model that can predict when the unseen threat will hit local beaches.
August 7, 2014
Ocean’s most oxygen-deprived zones to shrink under climate change
Predictions that the lowest-oxygen environments in the ocean will get worse may not come to pass. UW research shows climate change, by weakening the trade winds, will shrink these extremely low-oxygen waters.
July 16, 2014
Tracking the breakup of Arctic summer sea ice
An international team has placed sensors on and under Arctic sea ice to monitor this season’s retreat. Scientists hope to understand the physics of the ice edge in order to predict summer conditions in the Arctic Ocean.
June 16, 2014
Ferries for science: Instrument will monitor flow in Puget Sound
The UW, the state Department of Ecology and Washington State Ferries are working together to get a better understanding of water circulation in Puget Sound.
March 13, 2014
Tethered robots tested for Internet-connected ocean observatory
The UW this fall will complete installation of a huge high-tech ocean observatory. Dozens of instruments will connect to power and Internet cables on the seafloor, but the observatory also includes a new generation of ocean explorers: robots that will zoom up and down through almost two miles of ocean to monitor the water conditions and marine life above.
February 26, 2014
Whales, ships more common through Bering Strait
A three-year survey of whales in the Bering Strait reveals that many species of whales are using the narrow waterway, while shipping and commercial traffic also increase.
February 24, 2014
Vitamin water: Measuring essential nutrients in the ocean
Oceanographers have found that archaea, a type of marine microbe, can produce B-12 vitamins in the ocean.
October 8, 2013
UW, local company building innovative deep-sea manned submarine
The UW, Boeing and an Everett company are building a carbon-fiber submersible that will carry five passengers almost 2 miles deep.
September 18, 2013
Cables, instruments installed in the deep sea off Pacific Northwest coast
In a seven-week cruise this past summer, oceanographers and students laid 14 miles of extension cable and installed about a dozen instruments for a historic deep-sea observatory.
September 9, 2013
Breaking deep-sea waves reveal mechanism for global ocean mixing
Oceanographers for the first time recorded an enormous wave breaking miles below the surface in a key bottleneck for global ocean circulation.
May 20, 2013
Amazon River exhales virtually all carbon taken up by rain forest
A study published this week in Nature Geoscience shows that woody plant matter is almost completely digested by bacteria living in the Amazon River, and that this tough stuff plays a major part in fueling the river’s breath.
May 13, 2013
Using earthquake sensors to track endangered whales
Oceanographers are using a growing number of seafloor seismometers, devices that record seafloor vibrations, to carry out inexpensive and non-invasive studies of endangered whales.
April 12, 2013
Tsunami debris could be found in Washington’s annual beach cleanup
The annual beach cleanup may turn up new items from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan more than two years ago and sent objects to the Washington coast.
December 12, 2012
Award recognizes UW oceanographer’s talent for engaging public
The American Geophysical Union has presented its top prize for engaging the public in science to UW’s John Delaney.
December 10, 2012
Armbrust shares $35 million to investigate tiniest ocean regulators
Oceanographer Ginger Armbrust has received a multi-million dollar award to spend as she wishes on her research into ocean microbes and their role in regulating ocean environments and our atmosphere.
October 2, 2012
UW scientists team with Coast Guard to explore ice-free Arctic Ocean
UW scientists are teaming with the U.S. Coast Guard to study the new frontier in the Arctic Ocean opened up with the melting ice.
September 24, 2012
New York Times blog features UW scientist at sea
The New York Times’ Scientist at Work blog is featuring posts from Jim Thomson, an oceanographer at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, as he seeks big waves in the North Pacific.
July 26, 2012
Underwater ‘electrical outlets’ put in place for cabled ocean observatory project
The first U.S. cabled ocean observatory reached a milestone on July 14 with the installation of a node 9,500 feet deep off the coast of Oregon. Like a giant electrical outlet on the seafloor that also provides Internet connectivity, the node was spliced into a network of cable segments totalling some 560 miles that were…
July 22, 2011
The cable has landed: Ocean science history in the making — with slideshow
Submarine cables for the nations first regional cabled ocean observatory, a project led by the University of Washington, made landfall last week on the Oregon coast.
January 11, 2010
Microbe understudies await their turn in the limelight
On the marine microbial stage, there appears to be a vast group of understudies only too ready to step in when
December 17, 2009
Scientists witness for first time magma streaming from volcano in deep ocean
For the first time scientists have seen molten lava flowing from a deep-ocean seafloor volcano.
August 21, 2008
Underwater scout: New robot searches out best locations for components of undersea lab
Like a deep-sea bloodhound, Sentry — the newest in an elite group of unmanned submersibles able to operate on their own in demanding and rugged environments — has helped scientists pinpoint optimal locations for two observation sites of a pioneering seafloor laboratory being planned off Washington and Oregon.
January 31, 2008
Lost City pumps life-essential chemicals at rates unseen at typical black smokers
Hydrocarbons — molecules critical to life — are being generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the mid-Atlantic Ocean.
May 24, 2007
New hires, planning under way for proposed $130 million ocean observatory
Peter Barletto, who has more than three decades of experience with submarine cable systems and networks, started work at the University of Washington Monday, joining the project team tasked with developing detailed engineering specifications for a cabled underwater research facility to be built off the coast of Washington and Oregon.
November 2, 2006
UW students on the case (and on the ship) researching problems in Puget Sound
While the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was running a six-part series on problems plaguing Puget Sound, UW undergraduates, graduate students and faculty were at work on board the UW’s 274-foot research vessel gathering information needed to help puzzle out some of the sound’s most pressing problems.
May 25, 2006
Proposed budget includes money for cabled observatory off Washington
With $150 million in President Bush’s proposed budget to install a cabled seafloor observatory off Washington and Oregon, a planning session is being convened June 5 for UW faculty and departments to learn how they might take advantage of this new facility for earth and ocean research and education.
October 13, 2005
HDTV, live from the seafloor
With clever engineering and being in the right spot, under the right satellite, UW oceanographers working with Computing & Communications and the ResearchChannel became the first team in the world to broadcast high-definition video from the seafloor to selected sites around the world Sept.
March 10, 2005
Life in ‘Lost City’
The hydrothermal vents were miles from where anyone could have imagined.
August 7, 2003
Seafloor vent systems may have spawned earliest life
Black smoker hydrothermal vent systems may have the fire power, but the staying power of seafloor hydrothermal vent systems like the bizarre Lost City vent field — discovered just two and a half years ago — is one reason they may have been incubators of some of Earth’s earliest life, say UW scientists and their co-authors in a recent issue of Science.
February 13, 2002
Scientists delve into North Pacific mystery of changing oxygen
Oxygen in the upper waters of the North Pacific, an area that accounts for about 40 percent of the world’s oceans, decreased as much as 15 percent in a little under two decades between the early 1980s and late 1990s.
December 12, 2000
Hydrothermal vent system unlike any seen before found in Atlantic
A new hydrothermal vent field, which scientists have dubbed “The Lost City,” was discovered Dec. 4 on an undersea mountain in the Atlantic Ocean.
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