Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.
Old Sow is a large tidal whirlpool that forms in the Western Passage between Deer Island in New Brunswick and Moose Island at Eastport, Maine. Incoming water from the Bay of Fundy squeezes through irregular channels toward Passamaquoddy Bay, where the seafloor and colliding currents create a broad zone of rotating, turbulent water. NOAA calls…
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A satellite image can show the color of shallow coastal water, but managers need to know what lies beneath it. A benthic habitat map classifies the seafloor into useful ecological units such as coral reef, seagrass, sand or rocky bottom. NOAA’s benthic mapping overview explains that the word benthic refers to the bottom of a…
Neat lines cross parts of the seafloor on digital maps, sometimes forming grids that resemble streets. The patterns have inspired claims of a lost city beneath the Atlantic. Their true origin is more revealing about how scientists map the ocean than about any vanished civilization. NOAA explains that one often-cited underwater city pattern northwest of…
The Atlantic Ocean covers about 106.5 million square kilometers, or 41.1 million square miles, when its connected seas are included. It occupies roughly one-fifth of Earth’s surface and separates the Americas from Europe and Africa. NOAA’s estimate of the Atlantic Ocean’s size makes it the world’s second-largest ocean basin after the Pacific. The figure can…
