Oceana proposal for a Marine Protected Area. The Sound – 2016

The Sound is located between Sweden and Denmark, and forms, together with Little Belt and Great Belt, a connection between the brackish Baltic Sea and the saltier North Sea via Kattegat and Skagerrak. In 1932, a bottom trawling ban was established in the Sound because of heavy traffic in the narrow strait. The ban, which … Read more

Oceana discovers new areas of coral on the seamounts of the Balearic Islands

The international marine conservation organization has also documented a great biological wealth in the funds of Sa Dragonera, which should be kept The international organization of Oceana marine conservation has published a report with the results of its 2014 Balearic Islands expedition, on the seamounts of the channel of Mallorca (Ausiàs March, Emile Baudot and … Read more

Preliminary data on deep-sea benthic habitats documented in four macaronesian seamounts

Seamounts are considered biodiversity hotspots and the Macaronesian region hosts over one hundred of them. However, biological information on these underwater elevations remains scarce. In 2014, Oceana launched an at-sea campaign aimed at identifying and describing deep-sea benthic communities that inhabit several Macaronesian slopes and remote seamounts. As a preliminary outcome, the presence of Vulnerable … Read more

Oceana celebrates the protection of the Gorringe Bank

Since 2005, Oceana has been working to get the Gorringe Bank, one of the world’s most spectacular seamounts, protected. They will now be included within the network of protected sites in the Atlantic Oceana commends Portuguese Government for proposing the Gorringe Bank as a Site of Community Interest in accordance with EU legislation. This unique … Read more

Elsa Pataky on board the ‘Oceana Ranger’

Elsa Pataky and her husband, Chris Hemsworth, spent a day with an ongoing expedition currently being carried out by Oceana to document previously unexplored the depths off the Maltese coast. It is the first time Oceana ambassador Elsa and her husband have visited the Oceana Ranger – the catamaran belonging to the international marine conservation … Read more

A giant foraminifer that converges to the feeding strategy of carnivorous sponges: Spiculosiphon oceana sp. nov. (Foraminifera, Astrorhizida)

Agglutinated foraminifera make a relatively diverse group of organisms, which is taxonomically defined as a subclass (Textulariia) and comprises four orders. The orders are based upon gross morphology, wall structure, and cement composition (Kaminski 2004). The cement that binds the test together may be organic (as in the Astrorhizida), calcareous and canaliculate (as in the … Read more

Oceana launches expedition into unknown maltese depths

Oceana launches a two-month expedition to survey deep sea areas and underwater caves in Malta. The at-sea campaign, included within the LIFE Ba?AR for N2K project, will garner documentation on marine habitats and species so that new Sites of Community Importance can be protected under the Natura 2000 network. Many of these areas will be … Read more

A new species of glass sponge discovered in the Mediterranean

A new species of sponge has been discovered in the Mediterranean by an international group of scientists which included members of Oceana. Sympagella delauzei is the name that has been given to this new species of glass sponge (Hexactinellid), which measures between 8 and 14 centimetres including the stalk, and which is found at depths … Read more