Ocean science news, explainers, and statistics covering marine environments, currents, climate, coasts, seafloor research, and the changing global ocean.
Which animal sits at the top of the ocean food chain? The answer changes with the place, the prey and the connections that make up a food web. Ocean food webs have many branches, so one predator can eat prey from more than one level. Its position can also shift during its life. Scientists examine…
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Video cameras lowered to the floor of Challenger Deep found a small and strange animal cast. Footage from a site 10,908 meters below the surface recorded shrimp-like crustaceans called amphipods. It also showed elpidiid holothurians, a type of sea cucumber. The same seafloor held giant xenophyophores. Those organisms look animal-like from a distance, yet they…
At the edge of every wave, a busy animal community is easy to miss. Many beach residents are small, burrow quickly, or emerge after dark. Others arrive to feed, nest, rest, or pass through during migration. A beach is therefore more than open sand. It is a changing habitat shaped by tides, wind, salt and…
One hundred twenty-nine people were aboard USS Thresher when the nuclear-powered attack submarine was lost in the Atlantic on April 10, 1963. The loss remains the deadliest accident in U.S. submarine history. It also left a lasting technical and human legacy, because the Navy rebuilt crucial parts of its approach to submarine design, repair, testing,…
