Scientific news

Third edition of the Ramon Margalef Summer Colloquia will be carried out from 6th to 10th July 2015 at the Marine Sciences Institute in Barcelona, with the topic “Patterns and processes in boundary marine ecosystems”. 

Addressed to advanced doctoral students and recent PhDs, the Colloquia will include theoretical and practical activities, all around this central topic, as well as group discussion sessions.

Every day marine microalgae called diatoms take up 70 million tons of inorganic carbon from seawater to produce organic matter, a part of which sinks out into the deep ocean and sediments. This mechanism known as the oceanic biological pump reduces the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it diffuses into the upper ocean to compensate for the loss of sinking carbon. Over the last 40 million years continental erosion has increased the strength of the biological pump by stimulating the growth of marine diatoms.

At the Environmental Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CMIMA) we celebrate today that our Centre, formed by the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM) and the Marine Technology Unit (UTM) has reached 4000 entries in Digital.CSIC, the institutional repository of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, which objective is to organize, archive, preserve and communicate in open access the intelectual production resulting from the CSIC research activity.

In October 2011 took place the first submarine volcanic eruption in the last 500 yrs. of the volcanological history of the Canary Islands. The El Hierro island submarine volcano emitted to the ocean a large quantity of earth mantle materials as well as gases and heat that perturbed significantly the physicochemical properties of the waters surrounding the island.

Today starts in Barcelona the third edition of the Barcelona World Race 2014/15. All of the boats participating in the regatta are taking part in scientific projects with the Institute of marine Science, coordinated by the UNESCO-IOC. The results collected by the skippers will represent an important contribution to efforts being made by the scientific community and will play a fundamental role in the Barcelona World Race educational activities.

Four projects will be developed:

BON ANY  ¡FELIZ AÑO!  HAPPY NEW YEAR