The Latest Breaking News from Pacific Ocean

California nixes plant, but says open to desalination

California officials have nixed a proposal for a $1.4 billion desalination plant but say they’re open to growing the state’s capacity to turn Pacific Ocean seawater into drinking water to buffer against persistent drought

The Independent UK · May 13, 2022

Drought boon or boondoggle? Critics blast Poseidon desalination plan as crucial vote looms

LOS ANGELES — Among the many complex arguments over water in California, one particularly heated debate centers on whether the state should seek more drinking water from a plentiful but expensive source: the Pacific Ocean.

Los Angeles Times · Apr 23, 2022

China expands military might as far as French borders with Solomon Islands pact

China has signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, a tiny state in the Pacific Ocean. The US and Australia are furious and worry that Beijing might want to expand its naval operations. The agreement also means that China's sphere of influence now extends to French territory as the…

Radio France Internationale · Apr 20, 2022

Great white shark killed bodyboarder off California coast

LOS ANGELES — Tomas Abraham Butterfield headed into the Pacific Ocean with his wetsuit, fins and a bodyboard around 10 a.m. Christmas Eve. He was visiting his mother in Morro Bay last Christmas. The waters were turbulent at the spot known to locals as "the Pit" just north of Morro…

Los Angeles Times · Mar 30, 2022

Volcanoes, diamonds, and blobs: a billion-year history of Earth's interior shows it's more mobile than we thought

Deep in the Earth beneath us lie two blobs the size of continents. One is under Africa, the other under the Pacific Ocean.

The Conversation · Mar 30, 2022

Russian invasion should encourage Indonesia to revisit its nuclear plan

In 2011, as Indonesia planned to start a nuclear energy program, a giant warning sign crashed in from Japan: the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The disaster was triggered by a gigantic tsunami and it resulted in a broadcast of radioactive pollution over a stretch of Japan’s countryside and across the Pacific…

The Conversation · Mar 28, 2022

New Microscopic Organisms Found in Deep Sea Trench Baffle Chile Scientists

When Chilean scientist Osvaldo Ulloa led an expedition 8,000 meters under the sea to an area where no human had ever been, his team discovered microscopic organisms that generated more questions than answers. The January submarine expedition dove into the Atacama Trench, created by the meeting of two tectonic plates…

Asharq Al-Awsat · Mar 18, 2022

Peru's 'worst ecological disaster' slams small-scale fishing

A recent spill of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru has had a devastating effect on more than 2,500 small-scale fishermen

The Independent UK · Mar 13, 2022

Hundreds of millions of microplastic particles could be flowing into UK rivers, hidden in raw sewage

Microplastics are everywhere. Snow close to the peak of Mount Everest was found to contain on average 30 microplastic particles per litre. And 11,000m below sea level, in the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench, an average of 2,200 microplastic particles per litre of sediment were found.

The Conversation · Mar 3, 2022

Bizarre mummified 'mermaid' that 'grants immortality if flesh is eaten' is discovered

The terrifying creature, which was allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean off Japan betwen 1736 and 1741, looks eerily similar to a human apart from its contorted face, razor-sharp pointed teeth and fish tail

Daily Mirror · Mar 3, 2022