Press Releases
Are there Stone Age megastructures on the Baltic Sea floor? Research project SEASCAPE starts with kick-off at the IOW
The western Baltic Sea may harbour more of humanity’s cultural heritage than previously thought: underwater landscapes with monumental structures built by Stone Age hunter-gatherers. The interdisciplinary joint research project SEASCAPE, led by the IOW, now wants to investigate these unique traces. Today, researchers from all SEASCAPE partner institutions are meeting at the IOW to kick off the three-year collaboration.
After 7000 years without light and oxygen in Baltic Sea mud: Researchers bring prehistoric algae back to life
A research team led by the IOW was able to revive dormant stages of algae that sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea almost 7,000 years ago. Despite thousands of years of inactivity in the sediment without light and oxygen, the investigated diatom species regained full viability. The study, recently published in The ISME Journal, was carried out as part of the Leibniz Association-funded collaborative research project PHYTOARK.
International research network Baltic Earth: New shared hosting of the secretariat in Germany and Poland
After more than 30 years, the International Baltic Earth Secretariat (IBES), which supports research and other science activities of the Baltic Earth research network, is handed over from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon to two prominent oceanographic institutes at the Baltic Sea: The IOW and the Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot, Poland (IO PAN).
IOW Director Oliver Zielinski becomes a member of the German Science and Humanities Council (WR)
Oliver Zielinski, Director of the IOW and Professor of Earth System Research at the University of Rostock, was appointed to the German Science and Humanities Council (WR) on February 1, 2025, by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on the joint recommendation of the German Research Association, the Max Planck Society, the German Rectors' Conference, the Helmholtz Association, the Fraunhofer Society, and the Leibniz Association.
Appreciation from the United Nations: IOW's Baltic Sea long-term observation is officially part of the UN Oceans Decade
The IOW has been collecting physical, chemical and biological Baltic Sea data for many decades. As of this year, the centrepiece of the IOW's long-term observation programme – the annual monitoring ship expeditions – has been officially recognised as a project of the United Nations (UN) “Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021 – 2030”.
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