Researchers are keeping a close eye on Owha, the leopard seal that has made Auckland Harbour her home, after she was seen bleeding from her face on Saturday morning.
A chance discovery off the Gisborne coast five years ago is prompting a NIWA scientist to find out more about the link between a field of methane seeps bubbling out of the sea floor and submarine landslides.
A worm that feeds on bacteria and has no eyes is one of the standout stars of almost 600 unfamiliar and potentially new ocean species identified at NIWA in the past year.
For more than a year a frozen slab of leopard seal poo sat in a NIWA freezer. The poo, known scientifically as scat and about the size of two bread rolls, is as good as gold for leopard seal researchers.
A NIWA scientist who spent years poring over handwritten scientific notes stored in about 50 large wooden drawers, has seen the fruits of her labour now being used in ways she never imagined.
One of the world's leading scientific publishers has named a paper cowritten by a NIWA scientist as one of 250 groundbreaking findings that could "help change the world".
Scientists have launched a worldwide crowdsourcing competition aimed at finding novel ideas to tackle invasive marine pests, with a cash prize of $US10,000 on offer.
The 2016 Kaikōura Earthquake has shown that more than 100 million dumptrucks of mud and sand flow through the Kaikōura Canyon every 140 years, scientists say.
Every year NIWA carries out numerous marine surveillance missions, surveys at ports and harbours around the country. Their divers are looking for the pests that have hitched a ride to New Zealand waters and are capable of destroying our unique ecosystems and shellfish industry.
A group of talented Wellington students will be packing their books away this summer and heading into the environment after each winning a Blake Ambassador Award.
Since the end of June, a barge has been stationed just off Wellington’s Miramar Peninsula drilling into the seabed to find an alternative water source for the city.
NIWA scientists have found signs of recovery in the Kaikōura Canyon seabed, 10 months after powerful submarine landslides triggered by the November earthquake wiped out organisms living in and on the seabed.