coccolithophore

Bloomin’ marvellous

by Gareth December 11, 2010

A stunning image of a massive bloom of phytoplankton off the Chatham Islands (to the east of NZ — that’s Wellington and the Wairarapa in the top left corner), snapped by NASA’s Aqua satellite on December 5th and featured this week at NASA’s excellent Earth Observatory. Click on the image to see the full (4MB) [...]

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You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone

by Bryan Walker May 1, 2010

Biodiversity continues its steady decline. A team of scientists have this week published a study in Science confirming that fact.  Governments in 2002 at a summit on the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to aim to halt biodiversity loss by the year 2010. When experts meet in Nairobi on May 10 it will be to [...]

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Beautiful haze

by Gareth November 21, 2008

I’m a sucker for pictures from space, and this morning’s offering from NASA’s Earth Observatory site is a stunning view of the Chatham Islands, snapped by NASA’s Aqua satellite last Saturday (click on the picture to see the full size image). The turquoise clouds in the sea around the islands are a bloom of coccolithophores, [...]

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Friday on my mind (once more)

by Gareth June 6, 2008

Before you ask, the picture shows the shell of a coccolithophore, and it’s in trouble. We’ve been adding a lot of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and a good chunk of it has ended up in the oceans. The water is getting more acidic, and some sea creatures are finding it harder to build their [...]

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