What could be the world’s rarest coral has been discovered in the remote North Pacific Ocean.
The Pacific elkhorn coral (Acropora rotumana) — with branches like an elk’s antlers — was found during an underwater survey of the Arno atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Category Archives: Oceanography
Clever Octopus Builds A Mobile Home
An octopus that uses coconut shells as portable armor is the latest addition to a growing list of animals that use tools.
An Interglacial Jump In Sea Level
The potential for future rapid sea-level rise is perhaps the greatest threat from global warming. But the question of whether recent ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica is the first indication of such a rise is difficult to answer given the limited duration of the instrumental record. New evidence from an exceptionally exposed fossil reef in the Xcaret theme park in Mexico provides a detailed picture of the development of reef terraces, erosion surfaces and sea-level excursions in the region during the last interglacial. A combination of precise uranium-series dating and stratigraphic analysis, together with comparison with coral ages elsewhere, suggests that a sea-level jump of 2 to 3 metres occurred about 121,000 years ago, consistent with an episode of ice-sheet instability towards the end of the last interglacial. On that evidence, sustained rapid ice loss and sea-level rise in the near future are possible.
Whale Sharks Thriving In Waters Off Australia
Whale sharks, which grow to weigh as much as two or three adult elephants, are thriving in waters off Western Australia, a new study of underwater images suggests.
Monster Sea Waves
“These giant waves have been featured in many famous literary works from the Odyssey to Robinson Crusoe, but they were just thought to be the subject of myth for a long time,” said Daniel Solli of the University of California, Los Angeles, whose study appears in the journal Nature.