Chris Malanuk, Author at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory

A new study investigates oil-degrading microbes a year before Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Chris Malanuk — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:52:21 +0000

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWH) lasted three months and released 134 million gallons of oil across the Gulf of America – the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Greater than 108,000 square miles of fishing area were shut down for almost a year. Oil blanketed coastlines and an estimated 770 square miles of […]

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A New Collaboration to investigate the ocean’s natural accumulation of carbon

Chris Malanuk — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:23:13 +0000

Scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) have successfully installed an underway pCO2 system on the Research Vessel Falkor (too) as part of a new collaboration with the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Ocean Biogeochemistry Virtual Institute (OBVI), performing continuous surface measurements of the ocean’s accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide as the vessel sails across […]

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Models estimate potential shifts in thermal habitats for key fisheries

Chris Malanuk — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:57:47 +0000

The U.S. east coast has already seen shifts in the distribution of major fisheries, influencing catch limits and complications with permitting across states. As black sea bass, summer flounder and scup populations have shifted away from their habitat in the southeast, they have moved to northern regions where fisheries may have lower catch limits and […]

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Scientists at AOML push boundaries to investigate coral resilience of mesophotic reefs

Chris Malanuk — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:11:10 +0000

Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary (FGBNMS) consists of 160 miles of dispersed banks with underwater mountains, ridges, and troughs over 80 miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, and it hosts the highest recorded coral cover of any reef within the greater U.S. Atlantic region. While the relatively shallow coral reef caps of […]

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Traversing the South Atlantic to assess long-term changes across an entire ocean basin

Chris Malanuk — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:59:46 +0000

In early May, the 273-foot research vessel Roger Revelle docked in Cabo Verde with an international team of scientists after 53 days at sea, crossing the open Atlantic along a cruise path known as A16S. With scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) […]

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NOAA Ocean Exploration and AOML collaborate to release first eDNA data from Okeanos Explorer

Chris Malanuk — Tue, 05 May 2026 17:29:53 +0000

This story is adapted from NOAA Ocean Exploration. See the full story here. In April, NOAA Ocean Exploration, in partnership with NOAA’s National Systematics Laboratory at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Northern Gulf Institute, and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, released its first deep-sea environmental DNA (eDNA) datasets. These biological data […]

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Scientists at AOML lead workshop for international Surface Ocean CO2 Reference Observing Network (SOCONET)

Chris Malanuk — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:37:50 +0000

Last week, scientists with AOML’s Ocean Carbon Cycle team led a workshop under the international Surface Ocean CO2 Reference Observing Network (SOCONET) on best practices for maintaining an underway pCO2 system and quality-controlling data to standardize crucial measurements of the surface ocean’s uptake of carbon. The global ocean takes up carbon from the atmosphere on […]

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New study suggests electrochemically-induced Alkalinity Enhancement can enhance coral growth rates

Chris Malanuk — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 21:34:33 +0000

In a new study led by scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), a novel form of alkalinity enhancement (AE) was demonstrated to significantly enhance the growth rates of corals, a finding that could promote the scaling of coral reef restoration. Coral reef […]

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New study shows the aftermath of a deadly coral disease on the coral reef microbiome

Chris Malanuk — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:50:08 +0000

A new study led by scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS) indicates that stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has long-lasting impacts not only on corals, but also on their bacteria. Just as humans have bacteria and other microbes essential to our […]

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Applying omics techniques to examine microscopic life fueling Gulf region ecosystems

Chris Malanuk — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 16:26:08 +0000

Scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Lab and the Northern Gulf Institute applied omics techniques to provide the first basin-scale assessment of the microbial communities at the base of marine ecosystems across the Gulf region. The new study from Dr. Luke Thompson’s group, conducted by Dr. Sean Anderson and co-authors, is the largest environmental […]

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