A restaurant fillet, a dried shark fin, or a carved piece of ivory can become evidence in a wildlife investigation. Marine forensic scientists identify the species behind those items and preserve their methods for legal scrutiny. Their work helps investigators enforce conservation laws while also detecting seafood sold under a false name. At NOAA Fisheries,…
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Point Nemo lies in the South Pacific at roughly 48°52.6′ south and 123°23.6′ west. Every direction leads across about 1,670 miles of open water before reaching land. Its three nearest points are Ducie Island to the north, Motu Nui near Easter Island to the northeast and Maher Island off Antarctica to the south. The name…
Benjamin Franklin and Nantucket sea captain Timothy Folger produced the first widely recognized chart of the Gulf Stream in the late 1760s. Their map answered a practical postal puzzle: packets sailing west from Britain often took longer to reach New York than experienced American whalers expected. Folger knew where the fast current ran and Franklin…
Sea level does not form a smooth, uniform shell around Earth. The ocean surface follows the planet’s uneven gravity field, while currents, temperature and winds create additional slopes and bumps. A tide gauge also measures water against moving land, so two coasts can record different changes even while the global ocean gains the same total…
