Marine

  • Visitors from Australia

    23rd August 2011 by

    On returning to port after completing the standard climate change monitoring sampling the Temora was met by a retired couple who were very obviously on holiday. They were Mr and Mrs Mc Clellan who live approx ten kilometres outside Temora in New South Wales in Australia. While researching their holiday in Scotland on the internet,...

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  • What to do if you have found a non native species

    18th August 2011 by

    Non-native species (or “alien species”) are introduced outside of their natural past or present distribution – sometimes by human action. The term, Non-native species cover a wide range of different species from microscopic animals and plants to quite large species such as seaweeds, sea squirt, and crustaceans. Marine Scotland Science has prepared a document that...

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  • Cetaceans

    3rd August 2011 by

    In a glassy sea with a long unpleasant swell below leaden skies, we were treated to the sight of a medium sized Minke whale, and some common dolphins. That coupled with the large flocks of seabirds (mainly fulmars and gannets) sitting on the surface made the job in hand, i.e. sampling, all the more interesting. Some...

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  • Stonehaven publication

    28th July 2011 by

    A study undertaken to assess whether there is in an inshore to offshore gradient in the biological, chemical and physical parameters near Stonehaven on the north east coast of Scotland has recently been published (click here).

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  • Local Wildlife

    19th July 2011 by

    I recently blogged of swarms of jellyfish occurring in the waters east of Stonehaven during summertime. Well, not only can masses of jellies shut down a power station (e.g. Torness Power Station at the end of last month), but they can also cause ships to have downtime too. Whilst out monitoring today the crew and...

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  • Stonehaven Sampling 27th June 2011

    27th June 2011 by

    The seascape was monochromatically grey today. The only relief from the shades of grey were the distant green fields on the land and the occasional pink patches in the sea caused by dense aggregations of jellyfish.

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  • Jellyfish

    16th June 2011 by

    Occasional jellyfish were spotted during sampling this week reminding us that they will be getting more and more abundant as the water warms over the summer (see photo of lots of jellyfish in the sea near Stonehaven last year). Some reports suggest a global increase in the abundance of jellyfish. The EU funded project EcoJel...

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  • ICES/NAFO Decadal Symposium Presentations

    20th May 2011 by

    In a previous post, we mentioned that several talks and posters were going to be presented at the ICES/NAFO Deacadal Symposium held in May. The overall purpose of the symposium was to improve the understanding of hydro-biological variability between 2000 and 2009 in the North Atlantic. Several presentations and posters were provided by Marine Scotland...

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  • Pause in blog updates

    23rd March 2011 by

    Due to the Scottish Parliament elections on May 5 this account won’t be updated except to communicate essential government business.

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  • The Big Bang

    18th March 2011 by

    Possibly not ‘The’ Big Bang, but that is what the event was called! Marine Scotland Science’s John Dunn recently went to London to the Excel centre in London’s Docklands as mentor for the lab’s Nuffield student of last year (Katie Forbes) at The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair (UK’s biggest single celebration of science...

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