Ocean science news, explainers, and statistics covering marine environments, currents, climate, coasts, seafloor research, and the changing global ocean.
A study in Polar Biology found that historical weapon fragments recovered from bowhead whales can help scientists estimate the animals’ remarkable lifespans. One fragment, found in a bowhead harvested near Barrow, Alaska, in 2007, pointed back to the late 1800s and suggested the whale had survived for more than a century after an earlier strike.…
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Mangrove forests might not look impressive at first. Their tangled roots rise out of muddy, dark water and their thick trunks crowd the shoreline. The air is hot, the water is salty and the ground feels unstable. But despite this rough appearance, mangroves play a powerful and important role in coastal environments. These forests are…
When a whale surfaces from the dark water and breathes into the open air, it may seem like just a brief moment in a vast, empty sea. In truth, there’s much more happening than it seems. These animals help shape ocean ecosystems in ways that ripple from sunlit surface waters to the deep seabed, where…
Stand on a shoreline and the logic of a city begins to feel almost inevitable. A coast is more than a boundary – it is a threshold. It offers food, movement, shelter and a horizon that invites imagination. For thousands of years, people returned to that edge where land meets water and some of their…
