Water & Atmosphere 8, September 2013

A seabed survey in Cook Strait by NIWA's flagship research vessel Tangaroa showed that the origin of the magnitude 6.5 July earthquake was a previously unknown 'blind' fault.

New Zealand appears to be in a period of slightly elevated incidence of tornadoes, according to NIWA scientist Dr Richard Turner.

Given the media coverage, you can be forgiven for thinking that the June storms were the worst ever to hit New Zealand.

The discovery of seven new species of sea urchins, known as tam o'shanters, has helped resolve more than a hundred years of confusion about their distribution in New Zealand waters.

Social media hasn't got the crowd- sourcing phenomenon all to itself. Science has long been a user of information gathered from a large number of widespread people.

NIWA Ocean Geologist Dr Joshu Mountjoy is checking the validity of a theory that a massive undersea landslide could hit Kaikoura with a 13-metre-high tsunami.

Aerial photography is being used to map the shallow-water habitats of the southern Kaipara Harbour. The technique allows NIWA scientists to identify seagrass meadows – important for sustaining coastal fisheries such as snapper – down to their maximum growing depth of 3 to 4 metres below the low tide mark.

Eels are returning to Lake Ōmāpere in Northland, thanks to efforts to prevent over-nutrification.

It's long been thought that blue whales only transit through New Zealand waters when migrating between the Antarctic and equatorial waters. But a ground-breaking NIWA study into their distribution patterns off the south Taranaki coast confounds this hypothesis.

When Tangaroa was called to survey the site of the undersea earthquake that rocked Marlborough and Wellington, it was busy fulfilling the Government's Ocean Survey 20/20 initiative.

A suburban Hamilton stream has turned out to be the first spawning ground ever found of the giant kokopu whitebait.

The sun scorched New Zealand's rural hinterland over the summer of 2013. The drought reached across more of the country than any other in the past 40 years. Mark Blackham examines how the nation coped.

Humanity wants to discover the reasons behind thinning ice, acidic water and rising temperatures in the Southern Ocean. Susan Pepperell finds that NIWA scientists are racing against time in taking on this challenge.

When Nature turns the tap off, urban water managers have their work cut out keeping ours turned on. In early 2013 they passed a stern test, but climate change and sustained urban growth are demanding new thinking, finds Colin Barkus.

Almost seven in ten Kiwis live along New Zealand's coastline. And that's where the impacts of climate variability and change are likely to be hardest felt.

Petra Pearce's first job for NIWA was sifting through stormwater sediment – mud. Petra picked up the part-time job while studying science at university. "I learned first-hand the hard graft that goes into the glossy results and reports," she says, "and I loved it".

NIWA has launched two new online weather forecasting services designed to help Kiwis from different walks of life decide when to carry out weather- dependent activities.