Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.
The hadal zone is the ocean deeper than 6,000 meters, or about 19,700 feet. It occupies isolated trenches and troughs rather than forming a continuous layer across every basin. Its deepest known point, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, approaches 11,000 meters below sea level. The name comes from Hades, the ancient Greek underworld. NOAA…
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What people carry away from the ocean often sounds bigger than a day at the shore. In a national qualitative study, many respondents described the sea as a place where daily pressure eased, family bonds grew stronger, living creatures felt vividly present and responsibility toward the marine world became easier to feel in ordinary life.…
A turbidity current is a sediment-laden flow that moves downslope through a lake or ocean because it is denser than the clearer water around it. It behaves like an underwater avalanche, eroding the bed, carrying sediment through submarine canyons and depositing layered fans across deeper terrain. Earthquakes can trigger turbidity currents, but they are not…
Scientists measure ocean currents with mechanical and electronic current meters, drifting buoys, ship surveys, moorings, satellites and autonomous vehicles. One of the most versatile tools is the acoustic Doppler current profiler, or ADCP, which uses sound to measure water velocity at many depths at once. No single instrument captures every current. A mooring records change…
