Florida Beaches News

The U.S. Coast Guard informs it is working with SpaceX and partner agencies to monitor the debris field of the exploded Falcon 9 rocket in the Atlantic Ocean more than 150 miles off the Florida-Georgia coast. The unmanned SpaceX CRS-7 rocket was meant to deliver supplies, hardware and other cargo to the International Space Station, but a launch failure caused it to explode just after liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on June 28. The Coast Guard has issued caution to vessels transiting the area and is asking the public to report any sightings of debris that may wash ashore.

2015 will mark the 300th anniversary of the sinking of a dozen Spanish ships known as the 1715 Plate Fleet; plata being the Spanish world for silver. On the 30th of July 1715 twelve galleons, overloaded with Mexican gold and silver, left Cuba and sailed north carried by the Gulf Stream. Just off the coast of Florida between present day Sebastian and Fort Pierce they were struck by a ferocious hurricane. Some of the ships sank in deep water, some broke up in shallower water, and others ran aground near shore.

Dr. Jason Jolliff is an oceanographer with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). "The emphasis here," he says, "is on developing models of the ocean environment to help the naval warfighter." His most recent paper, published in Ocean Modeling (March 2014), shows NRL can also forecast where oil will go following a major spill. "If you're going to do forecasting," he says, "you have to get the ocean circulation correct. It's fundamental to all else." Jolliff plugged the distribution…

The Senate on Thursday backed a White House compromise that drastically reduced proposed oil and natural gas drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast, rejecting a bid by the state's Democratic senators to temporarily block development of the tract. Voting 67-33, the Democratic-led Senate rejected an amendment pushed by Florida Sens. Bill Nelson and Bob Graham to delay for six months oil and gas leasing in a lucrative tract in federal waters off the coasts of Florida and Alabama. After the Republican-led House of Representatives voted last month for a six-month ban on the leasing, President George W. Bush agreed to shrink the tract by 75 percent and keep it at least 100 miles away from Florida's beaches. Florida lawmakers, including Gov.