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Geology News
Atlantic Current Events

NASA Image

An archive of NASA news releases, image galleries and articles on a variety of topics related to planetary geology, earth observation, global climate change, monitoring volcanoes, looking beyond our solar system, monitoring the oceans and more. A few of the most popular ones are:

• Monitoring Volcanoes from Space
• Photograph of Avalanches on Mars
• Glacial Sediments Add to Louisiana Coastal Subsidence
• Satellite Images of Marine Phytoplankton Blooms
• Sahara Dust Storms Lower Sea Surface Temperatures
• Satellite Measures Pollution From East Asia to North America

Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University: “We foresee a well above-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2008….. We anticipate an above-average probability of United States major hurricane landfall.”

In a dramatic distress case yesterday, NOAA satellites helped the U.S. Coast Guard respond to a major engine room fire aboard the merchant vessel M/V Sea Venus 1,200 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusets.

Husky Energy Company’s White Rose platform in the North Atlantic was threated by icebergs. Most of the crew was evacuated and production was shut in as a precaution. A few crew members remain on the platform so that production can be turned on immediately when conditions improve - or the platform can be disconnected from the ocean floor if conditions get worse.

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that grow in the sunlit surface waters of the ocean. When enough phytoplankton grow in one place, the bloom can be seen from space. This collection of NASA images features worldwide phytoplankton blooms.

The chemistry at this Atlantic hydrothermal vent site may be an analog for origins of life. The vents pump ion-rich waters up from deep beneath the sea floor and huge mineral deposits accumulate on the sea floor around them. The vents at Lost City differ from the typical black smokers because the deposits forming are mainly carbonates.

USGS Image

Did you know that the Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest part of the Atlantic? Brian Roman’s has a short summary of the Puerto Rico Trench, with map and block diagram, and a link to where you can learn more about it.

Millions of tiny ocean plants are producing phytoplankton blooms near the Falkland Islands. The bloom is carried by the Malvinas (Falkland) Current, which passes near the Falkland Islands. This current is cold and loaded with nutrients which drive the bloom.

USGS Image

Greenland plans to auction oil and natural gas exploration leases in a number of areas. They recently sold at auction leases to tracts off of their west coast that are now free of ice for at least five months but were once considered close to almost unsuitable for development.

“A Duke University-led analysis of available records shows that while the North Atlantic Ocean’s surface waters warmed in the 50 years between 1950 and 2000, the change was not uniform. In fact, the subpolar regions cooled at the same time that subtropical and tropical waters warmed.” Quoted from the NASA article.

Earth Observatory has an interesting satellite image of a phytoplankton bloom off the Atlantic coast of Argentina. The blue-green plume is a result of billions of tiny plants growing in the ocean surface waters. The Malvinas Current travels north along the continental shelf. Its motion pulls deep, cold nutrient rich waters up to the surface. These waters act as a natural fertilizer for the production of the phytoplankton.

NASA satellites provide data suggesting that dust blown from the African Sahara could be responsible for one-third of the drop in North Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures between June 2005 and 2006. Satellite images clearly show that amazing amounts of dust are blown off of the African continent.

Brian Romans has a short essay about the bathymetry of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. It includes interesting information and images about the Canary Islands volcanic chain, the Azores, the Azores triple junction and Strait of Gibraltar.

The 150-km-long Hudson Shelf Valley is the largest physiographic feature on the mid-Atlantic continental shelf. It is the submerged seaward extension of the ancestral Hudson River drainage system that, has not been filled with sediment. Brian Romans describes it with good illustrations on his blog.

NOAA is working on a series of relief models that will help assess the tsunami and storm-driven flood threats for the eastern coast of the United States. Just finished are models for Long Island, New York; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Daytona Beach. Florida.

The UK is submitting territorial claims for areas in the South Atlantic to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. They are claiming thousands of square miles around the Faulkland Islands, Ascension Island and Rockall. Their motivation is probably drawn from the potential for oil and gas resources in that area.

The National Hurricane Center monitors the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico for tropical storms and hurricanes. They then make maps, forecasts, satellite images, and other information available to the public online. Their website also has a variety of hurricane awareness and history information.

NOAA Image

From the article: Sea surface temperatures were warming up in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and eastern Atlantic Ocean by the middle of August. As a result, they helped spawn Hurricane Dean in the central Atlantic, and Tropical Storm Erin in the Gulf of Mexico, both during the week of August 13.

NOAA Image

Sea surface temperatures are important determinants of hurricane formation and the data is valuable for a variety of studies. NOAA has a website where you can view sea surface temperature maps for US Atlantic, US Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Equatorial Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of California, Gulf of Alaska, Great Lakes, Hawaii, Bering Strait, Global and many more.

The introduction of organisms from foreign locations can destroy native species and ecological balance. Researchers along the New England coast are finding some invasive species as part of NOAA’s national Sea Grant program. Increasing levels of shipping and commerce are making it easier for organisms to travel long distances and be planted in new environments.

NASA Image

Earth Observatory has a spectacular satellite image of a phytoplankton bloom (a sudden growth of billions of microscopic plants in the ocean’s surface waters) which recently occurred off the southwest coast of Iceland. Large amounts of chlorophyll and other pigments within the plants, along with other materials in the water produce these enormous swirls of color in the ocean’s water that can only be appreciated from high altitude. The small image shown here represents about 60,000 square kilometers of ocean surface.