The good news from the first Census of Marine Life is: New Zealand's waters are indeed teeming with wondrous creatures and plants.

The US government allowed BP to keep the cap shut on its oil well for another day despite news the well is leaking.

The brown spots run like a trail of blood down the deserted coastline near this fishing village. Just underneath a handful of sand lies spilled oil.

Polar scientists are united on the likelihood of level rises - but how much and when?

Is the attention New Zealand is getting from foreign oil prospectors accelerating?

Oil giant ExxonMobil says new rules to curb drilling should be held off until the lessons from the Gulf of Mexico disaster are fully understood.

NZ will join Australia in taking legal action over Japan's whaling programme if last minute diplomatic solutions are not found.

The world's oceans are warming up - and mankind is to blame, according to a scientists' report.

Computer models show the black ooze in the Gulf of Mexico may have already entered a major current flowing towards Florida and the Atlantic Ocean.

Obama has pledged to end the "cosy relationship" between the oil industry and federal regulators.

Top executives from BP and two other firms involved in the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico came under fire at a US Senate hearing.

Emergency crews are desperately trying to put together a new plan to stem the flow of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico

The most detailed account yet of what led to the deadly explosion on a BP oil rig that has left the US' coast exposed to millions of litres of leaking oil.

The US Coast Guard has successfully completed a controlled burn of a portion of the oil slick off the Gulf Coast.

Fisherman and seafaring residents of the Louisiana shoreline despair as a vast oil slick approaches.

Questions are sure to be raised about a self-policing system that trusted a commercial oil operator to take care of its own mishap.