Oceans
- Earth
A massive cavern beneath a West Antarctic glacier is teeming with life
A subglacial river has carved out the cavern beneath the Kamb Ice Stream, a West Antarctic glacier, and may be supplying nutrients necessary for life.
- Oceans
‘Jet packs’ and ultrasounds could reveal secrets of pregnant whale sharks
Only one pregnant whale shark has ever been studied. New underwater techniques using ultrasound and blood tests could change that.
- Oceans
50 years ago, researchers discovered a leak in Earth’s oceans
An analysis of oceanic rocks hinted that ocean water drains into Earth’s mantle. How much makes it back into the ocean remains unclear.
- Climate
Many Antarctic glaciers are hemorrhaging ice. This one is healing its cracks
Scientists have explored the recesses of an Antarctic glacier that is currently stable, helping improve predictions of the continent’s fate.
- Oceans
50 years ago, scientists discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
In 1973, plastic bottles adrift in the North Pacific alarmed scientists. Fifty years later, more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic litter the area.
- Climate
Rapid melting is eroding vulnerable cracks in Thwaites Glacier’s underbelly
Thwaites is melting slower than thought, but the worst of it is concentrated in underbelly cracks, threatening the Antarctica glacier’s stability.
- Paleontology
In the wake of history’s deadliest mass extinction, ocean life may have flourished
Ocean life may have recovered in just a million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, fossils from South China suggest.
- Science & Society
Sea life offers a lens for self-exploration in ‘How Far the Light Reaches’
In a collection of essays profiling 10 marine animals, author Sabrina Imbler mixes in stories of their own family, self-discovery, sexuality and healing.
- Ecosystems
Tiger sharks helped discover the world’s largest seagrass prairie
Instrument-equipped sharks went where divers couldn’t to survey the Bahama Banks seagrass ecosystem.
- Oceans
Sharks face rising odds of extinction even as other big fish populations recover
Over the last 70 years, large ocean fishes like tuna and marlin have been recovering from overfishing. But sharks continue to decline toward extinction.
- Climate
Here’s what happened to the Delaware-sized iceberg that broke off Antarctica
The powerful pull of currents in the Southern Ocean probably pulled apart the largest remnant of a massive iceberg that split off Antarctica in 2017.
- Environment
Mangrove forests expand and contract with a lunar cycle
The carbon-sequestering trees grow in a roughly 18-year cycle according to tides influenced by the moon’s orbit, a study in Australia finds.
