Collaborate Disseminate
Just like a tree trunk, the tusk of the narwhal acquires a new growth ring every year. Analyses of those rings have now revealed some interesting facts about the animals’ diet, and about changes in their environment.Continue ReadingCategory: Biology, S… Continue reading Narwhal tusk rings reveal valuable environmental data
When it’s determined that a boater is officially missing at sea, it helps very much to know when and where their vessel sank. According to new research, barnacles growing on flotsam could provide that information.Continue ReadingCategory: ScienceTags: … Continue reading Barnacle analysis may help solve “missing at sea” mysteries
When we hear about microplastic particles polluting the ocean, the usual suspected sources are degraded consumer plastic goods and synthetic textile fibers from washing machines. A new study, however, suggests that much of the blame lies with protectiv… Continue reading Study points to ship hull coatings as a major source of microplastic pollution
If you were a marine animal that just sat and waited for food to drift by, you might not choose to live in a place where little life is believed to exist. Nonetheless, such critters have recently been found deep beneath an Antarctic ice shelf.Continue … Continue reading Never-before-seen animals discovered deep beneath Antarctic ice shelf
Saturn’s moon Titan is one of the most fascinating bodies in the solar system, not least because it’s home to huge oceans, lakes and rivers of liquid methane. Now scientists have used radar to probe the composition and depth of its largest sea, Kraken … Continue reading Depths of alien ocean probed with radar in Cassini study
San Francisco-based aquatic drone-maker Saildrone has returned with a bigger and better version of its unmanned vehicle designed to explore the seas. The newly introduced 72-ft (22-m) Saildrone Surveyor is equipped with the hardware needed to map the s… Continue reading 72-ft autonomous Saildrone sets out on seafloor-mapping mission
We know that tons of plastic waste washes into the ocean each year, but what we don’t know all that much about is what happens to it once it gets there. A new study as shone a light on the role deep-sea trenches can play in the movement of plastic poll… Continue reading Sediment samples show how deep-sea trenches can act as “plastic traps”
While we’re pretty well across the topography of the Earth’s surface, understanding that of the ocean floor is a whole other ball game. It is said that we know more about the surface of Mars than the seafloor, and scientists are developing all sorts of… Continue reading Stingrays demonstrate mapping potential as they skim the seafloor
Although AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) excel at gathering marine data without human intervention, they’re still limited by battery life. Texas startup Terradepth has set out to address that problem, with a novel tag-team system.Continue Reading… Continue reading Place-trading AUVs designed for longer oceanographic missions
While it’s important for biologists to know which organisms have colonized the seabed in a given area, excavation is both labor-intensive and ecologically unsound. That’s where the Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures – or ARMS – are made to come in.C… Continue reading ARMS units provide a sampling of seabed life