Tiny probes packed with instrumentation have been turned loose in a laboratory in France. The marble-sized devices are an important step on the road to long-anticipated miniaturized machines known as…

Australia’s coral reefs, particularly the Great Barrier Reef, are national icons, of great economic, social, and aesthetic value. Tourism on the Great Barrier Reef alone contributes approximately $5…

In 2007, Arctic summer sea ice reached its lowest extent on record - nearly 25% less than the previous low set in 2005. At the end of each summer, the sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent and…

A new study says that salt-saturated brine moving through floating sea ice follows “universal transport properties” and that this new understanding can help anticipate the effects of global warming…

Australian scientists have identified the missing deep ocean pathway – or ‘supergyre’ – linking the three Southern Hemisphere ocean basins in research that will help them explain more accurately how…

More than a mile beneath the Atlantic’s surface, roughly halfway between New York and Portugal, seawater rushing through the narrow gullies of an underwater mountain range much as winds gust between…

Finding a decent, honest mate is challenging enough without the added problem of reduced visibility caused by human-induced changes to the aquatic environment. Yet this is precisely the sort of…

Technical advances over the past 50 years have allowed improved knowledge to be gained of the properties of sea water at great depths. Yet the first centimetres of the ocean remain its least well…

Using echo-sounding equipment to create images and maps of areas below the ocean floor, researchers have begun to unravel a new story about the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Images of areas below the Eastern…

Global climate change is causing Antarctic ice shelves to shrink and split apart, yielding thousands of free-drifting icebergs in the nearby Weddell Sea. According to a new study in this week’s…