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Oceans

Marine algae blooms like these in the northern Ross Sea are often vast enough to be visible from space.

Future of Conservation

Who Owns Antarctica’s Pristine Oceans?

How humans finally stopped squabbling and protected one of the world’s most pristine marine areas

A man dives in the Coral Triangle off Ghizo, Solomon Islands, in 2011.

Three Things to Know About the Coral Triangle, the Ocean’s Biodiversity Hot Spot

At more than a billion acres of ocean, the Coral Triangle is one of the world’s biggest and most important marine regions

A field of methane craters on the floor of the Barents Sea

New Research

Ancient Methane Explosions Rocked the Arctic Ocean at the End of the Last Ice Age

As retreating ice relieved seafloor pressures, trapped methane burst through to the water column, study says

Typhlonus nasus, the Faceless Cusk

Cool Finds

“Faceless” Fish Found off the Coast of Australia

The rare creature was dredged up from some 13,000 feet below the surface

Cool Finds

See the Gulf of Mexico’s Seafloor Like Never Before With This 1.4-Billion-Pixel Map

Made from data collected from 200 proprietary maps from oil and gas companies, the new image has a resolution 16 times greater than the next best map

Cool Finds

These Sustainable Sneakers Are Made Using Algae

The shoes’ manufacturers harvest harmful algal blooms and turn the goo into footwear

The new sea turtle tanks have one-way glass to minimize visitor impact on the animals.

American South

A State-of-the-Art Sea Turtle Hospital Welcomes Patients and Visitors in South Carolina

The South Carolina Aquarium invites tourists to visit their reptilian patients, watch surgeries and even conduct mock operations using VR

The doge's barge, called the Bucentaur, returning to Venice after the "wedding" ceremony. This painting is by eighteenth-century Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto.

Venice Has Been Married to the Sea for Over a Thousand Years

Happy anniversary, you crazy kids

A blue whale swims through the Indian Ocean. These massive creatures are the largest animals on Earth.

New Research

Why Did Whales Get So Massive?

The answer is a tale of massive proportions

Cool Finds

Take a Virtual Swim Through Five Marine Sanctuaries

From sunken ships to schools of fish, the new 360-degree, VR images are breathtaking

Henderson Island, world's garbage can.

New Research

This Remote Island Is Covered with 37 Million Pieces of Your Trash

Immaculate no more, the island now looks more like a dump than a pristine paradise

The ammonite that left the mark

New Research

Ancient Creature Left a 28-Foot Drag Mark After It Died

An ammonite found in a German quarry left its mark on its lagoon home

White plastic horse, 3. Plamacina retroversta ic. III. Specimen collected from Cobh shoreline, Cove of Cork, Ireland

Art Meets Science

These Haunting Photographs Call Attention to Plastic Trash Swirling in the Ocean

Award-winning photographer Mandy Barker explores the beauty and tragedy of marine plankton and plastic waste

Environmental chemists are developing a method that could suck toxic metals out of marine environments.

How Electrified Steel Could Suck Toxic Metals From the Ocean

After a century of strip mining and deforestation, New Caldonia researchers are working to de-contaminate marine waters

Stay back! A beached Portuguese man o’war

New Research

Urine Luck: Vinegar Is the Best Treatment for a Man O’ War Sting

A new study suggests urine, sea water and lemon juice all do more harm than good on painful stings

The female cuttlefish and her two angry suitors

New Research

Watch Two Cuttlefish Fiercely Battle Over a Mate

This is the first time researchers caught the creatures locked in a vicious fight in the wild

New York restaurants donated these oyster shells to the project. They'll be used to grow new oysters as part of an ambitious restoration program.

Future of Conservation

Why New York Schoolchildren Want to Grow a Billion Oysters

It’s a grand attempt to restore a ravaged estuary

New Research

Why Mother and Baby Humpback Whales Whisper to One Another

The quiet communication helps them avoid killer whales and randy male humpbacks

In a post-9/11 world, border walls between countries have become more common. But the science is severely lacking in our understanding of how they impact species and fragment ecosystems. Here, a continuous wire fence marks the border between the U.S. and Mexico near Tijuana.

Future of Conservation

How a Border Wall Could Wreak Ecological Havoc

Also in this episode of Generation Anthropocene: The case of U.S. Navy ships, beached whales and deadly sonar pings

What Coconuts Can Tell Us About Escaping Alcatraz

Researchers are using GPS-enabled coconuts to monitor currents to determine if three men could have survived a 1962 escape from “The Rock”

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