You’ve probably heard the saying that Earth is mostly water, roughly 70%. Well it turns out that many people have misunderstood the facts and that it’s only the Earth’s surface that is mainly water. To get a better understanding of the limited amount of water on Earth, the USGS gives a visual explanation with one [...]

The latest research from a team of scientists shows that the amount of dense Antarctic Bottom Water is roughly 40% of what it was when measured in 1970 and has become less saline. CSIRO researchers believe that the Southern Ocean is responding to climate changes and global warming in polar regions. Comparing detailed measurements taken [...]

It took seven years, but the photographic record of the Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound on Alaska’s southern central Pacific coast has been compiled into a time-lapse video that documents the glacier’s rapid ice discharge. This is helping researchers to understand better how tidewater glaciers are contributing to seal-level rise. The video itself was [...]

While scientists continue to monitor climate change and the cause and effect on the environment, a new study from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory looks at the global water cycle and describes changing patterns of salinity in the world’s oceans over a 50 year period. Their findings suggest changes are occurring faster than previous models [...]

As population grows and consumption increases, so does waste and pollution. Scientists have been working on a way to better track and understand how pollution will affect wildlife and human health and have created glowing zebrafish to help with that process. Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set [...]

According to new data from 2011 NOAA tests, bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico are underweight, anemic, have low blood sugar and/or some symptoms of liver and lung disease. The research is part of the process for studying the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, are showing [...]

This incredible visualization of the Earth and its oceans was created by the Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. It’s called Perpetual Ocean and allows the visualization of the surface of the oceans over a 30-month period, between June 2005 and December 2007. The animation was created using NASA and JPL’s high-resolution [...]

While on IODP Expedition 340T, a team of scientists were able to measure the geophysical properties of gabbroic rocks directly in place for the first time. With these new measurements, scientists may be able to use seismic survey data to infer the pattern of seawater circulation within the deeper crust making it easier to map [...]

While analyzing samples of submarine volcanic glass near subduction zones, scientists found something unexpected. They saw changes in isotopes of hydrogen and boron from the deep mantle and discovered evidence of seawater distilled long ago from a more ancient plate descent event, preserved for as long as 1 billion years. Washington, D.C.— Seawater circulation pumps [...]

Deep below the ocean’s surface, huge eddies are often formed. The depths have their own kinds of weather systems. NASA’s Terra satellite captured this photo of a gigantic plankton-fueled eddy that was released. The eddy is completely submerged under water. Unlike terrestrial storms, ocean whirlwinds draw nutrients from the deep, nourishing blooms of microscopic marine [...]

Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) think that they could use graphite foam to harness energy from the temperature gradient in tropical waters, where the difference between surface and bottom varies as much as 70 to 80 degrees. In the tropics, going down just a couple of thousand feet into the ocean yields [...]

The European Space Agency’s Mars Express has finally returned with some strong evidence of Martian oceans. Using its MARSIS radar, it detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor, within the boundaries of previously identified shorelines. The MARSIS radar was deployed in 2005 and has been collecting data since then. Jérémie Mouginot, from the Institut de [...]