Ocean science news, explainers, and statistics covering marine environments, currents, climate, coasts, seafloor research, and the changing global ocean.
Summer water near some Persian Gulf reefs can approach 36 °C, a temperature that would bleach many tropical corals. Yet reef-building corals persist in the Gulf’s southern reaches. Their survival has made the region an unusually important natural laboratory for a hard question: how does a coral partnership keep functioning when heat pushes close to…
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A worldwide fish total would be a remarkable number to know. It could show the scale of life moving through the sea and give a vivid sense of what fishing, warming water and habitat change may affect. Yet no scientific agency can produce an exact, defensible tally of every fish in the ocean. Fish drift…
Which living ocean animal has the greatest maximum adult mass? The blue whale leads easily, but the rest of a defensible heavyweight list is dominated by other whales. Several species that are shorter than the longest whales have stockier bodies and higher published maximum weights. This ranking uses the highest reported adult body mass for…
The ocean covers about 70% of Earth’s surface, yet its hidden spaces still outnumber the places people have studied closely. The answer to how much is undiscovered depends on the question being asked. A satellite map, a sonar survey, a camera dive and a biological sample each reveal a different part of the same vast…
