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Imagine the last thing you see before you die being a sentient plastic bag. Image credit: uwkwaj via iNaturalist, CC BY-NC 4.0 Nudibranchs quite literally come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, but most recently we’ve been losing it over the perplexing body plan of Melibe viridis, also known as the green melibe. Its elongated body is lined with sticky lobes that act a little like legs but also as decoys when under attack, and it’s easy to see how a predator could become confused when grappling with such a bizarre creature. The leading characteristic of green melibes is their...

Seabed circles ‘Whodunnit?’ solved by David Catchpoole 5-24-19 In 1995, divers off the coast of Japan discovered a circular structure about two metres (6 ft) in diameter carved in the seafloor sand. Consisting of multiple ridges symmetrically radiating out from a small patterned circle in the centre, more of these geometric seabed formations were soon discovered nearby. These ‘underwater crop circles’—as some dubbed them—mysteriously came and went, and “appeared to be the work of an underwater artist, carefully working with tools. … But who or what created them?”1

The sea bed in the deep ocean during the Cambrian period was thought to have been inhospitable to animal life because it lacked enough oxygen to sustain it. But research published in the scientific journal Geology reveals the existence of fossilized worm tunnels dating back to the Cambrian period­­ 270 million years before the evolution of dinosaurs. The discovery, by USask professor Brian Pratt, suggests that animal life in the sediment at that time was more widespread than previously thought. The worm tunnels—burrows where worms lived and munched through the sediment—are invisible to the naked eye. But Pratt “had a...

The reason that the ocean floor, especially the southern hemisphere oceans, is so poorly charted is that electromagnetic waves cannot penetrate the deep ocean (3-5 km = 2-3 mi). Instead, depths are commonly measured by timing the two-way travel time of an acoustic pulse. However because research vessels travel quite slowly (6m/s = 12 knots) it would take approximately 125 years to chart the ocean basins using the latest swath-mapping tools. To date, only a small fraction of the sea floor has been charted by ships. Fortunately, such a major mapping program is largely unnecessary because the ocean surface has...

A remote part of the Indian Ocean has become, by chance, one of the best-mapped parts of the underwater world. The ocean is vast, deep, and unexplored. When Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared three years ago this week, the search brought the ocean’s vastness into sharp relief. This is how deep and dark it is three miles down. This is how unlikely you are to spot a downed airliner in 120,000 square nautical miles of open ocean. This is how much we know about the ocean floor—less than we know about the surface of Mars. As the search dragged on...

story from AP, so, not risking an excerpt.

THE $90 million search for MH370 has discovered “man made objects” almost four kilometres under the surface of the southern Indian Ocean, but they are not the missing Boeing 777. Instead the debris is thought to be from an ancient shipwreck, comprising an anchor and other items. Australian Transport Safety Bureau Operational Search Director Peter Foley said they were “obviously disappointed” the discovery was not the missing aircraft.

he U.S. Navy has located a transport aircraft deep on the Pacific Ocean floor where it crashed in November, killing three sailors on board. The C-2A "Greyhound" aircraft, which was traveling to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan when it crashed the day before Thanksgiving in the Philippine Sea, rests at a depth of about 18,500 feet (5,640 meters), the Japan-based 7th Fleet said in a statement Saturday. Salvaging it will be the deepest recovery attempt of an aircraft to date, the Navy said. The plane was located last week by a contracted salvage vessel that deployed a pinger locator...

The floor of the Gulf of Mexico is one of the most geologically interesting stretches of the Earth’s surface. The gulf’s peculiar history gave rise to a landscape riddled with domes, pockmarks, canyons, faults, and channels — all revealed in more detail than ever before by a new 1.4 billion-pixel map. This striking view of the ocean floor off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas was created by a government agency you’ve likely never heard of called the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The bureau’s job is to manage exploration and development of the country’s offshore mineral and energy...

Whilst undertaking detailed seabed scanning for the development of windfarm projects in the East Anglia Zone, off the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, windfarm developers ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) and Vattenfall uncovered something they weren't expecting -- an 'uncharted' wreck of a WWI German submarine, missing in action since 1915... SPR and Vattenfall used advanced sonar technology to scan over 6,000km2 of the seabed in the Southern North Sea over two years, which is nearly 4 times the size of Greater London (1,583km2). This work is critical to understand seabed conditions, and allow the companies to design the layout of their...

Storms off the west coast of Ireland have disturbed the seabed to reveal two 16th century cannons wrecked from the Spanish Armada. The cannons were brought to the surface this week by underwater archaeologists and are said to be in "extraordinarily good condition". They are thought to come from the wreck of the merchant vessel La Juliana, which sank in storms off Stredagh, Co Sligo on Ireland’s west coast in September 1588 along with two others,La Lavia and Santa Maria de Vision. The artifacts were recovered by the Underwater Archaeology Unit of Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht. One...

The Indonesian navy has retrieved from the seabed the tail of the AirAsia plane that crashed two weeks ago. Divers used an inflatable device to pull the tail to the sea's surface. They are also searching for the plane's "black box" flight recorders, which officials believe have been separated from the tail section. Forty-eight bodies have been retrieved so far.

Scientists have found 500 seabed vents bubbling methane into the Pacific Ocean off the United States, roughly doubling the number of known U.S. seeps of the powerful greenhouse gas, a study showed on Wednesday. Methane naturally escapes from the sea floor in many places around the world and can stoke global warming if it reaches the atmosphere. Worldwide, scientists are trying to see if rising ocean temperatures cause more leaks. "It appears that the entire coast off Washington, Oregon and California is a giant methane seep," Robert Ballard, who is famed for finding the wreck of the Titanic and has...

Despite the ever present wailing from green activists that we are sitting on a “methane catastrophe”, it’s simply business as usual for Earth in the Arctic. Even Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS thinks the issue is “implausible”. This study further confirms that the issue is just another emotional overblown green issue of no merit.Methane seepage from the Arctic seabed occurring for millions of yearsFrom the Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and EnvironmentMethane gas flares, up to 800 meters high, rise from the Arctic Ocean floor. That is the size of the tallest building in the world, Burj...

Vast ranges of volcanoes hidden under the oceans are presumed by scientists to be the gentle giants of the planet, oozing lava at slow, steady rates along mid-ocean ridges. But a new study shows that they flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years -- and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year. The pulses -- apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth's orbit, and to sea levels--may help trigger natural climate swings. Scientists have already speculated that volcanic cycles on land emitting large amounts of carbon...

Radioactive strontium detected in seabed Radioactive strontium has been detected for the first time on the seabed near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Tokyo Electric Power Company says it found strontium-89 and -90 in the seabed soil. The company conducted a survey on June 2nd about 3 kilometers off the coast at 2 locations, some 20 kilometers north and south of the nuclear complex. The substances pose a serious health risk because they can accumulate in the bones if inhaled, which could cause cancer. Up to 44 becquerels per kilogram of strontium-90 were detected, which has a half-life...

High radiation found on seabed in 300-km stretch off Fukushima Saturday 28th May, 05:07 AM JST TOKYO — Radiation levels up to several hundred times normal have been detected on the Pacific seabed in a 300-kilometer-long area off the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the science ministry said Friday. The ministry said high-level radioactive materials were detected on the seabed in a north-south stretch ranging from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, to Choshi, Chiba Prefecture, and warned the contamination could affect the safety of seafood.

Seabed scratches show icebergs reached the tropics 09 June 2008 NewScientist.com news service ICEBERGS often etch out messages on the shallow ocean floor. Now a newly discovered set of scratches suggests bergs from the icy north drifted further south than we thought after the last ice age. The meltdown of North American ice sheets about 15,000 years ago released a flotilla of icebergs into the Atlantic. Gouges left by bergs on the ocean bed have previously been found off New Jersey, close to the southernmost edge of the ice sheet, but it had been thought that looping currents would have...

Experts survey seabed off Gujarat for Dwarka evidence New Delhi, Aug 17 : A group of archaeological experts and Indian Navy divers have conducted the first scientific survey off the Gujarat coast to establish whether or not the ruins on the seabed are of the mythological city of Dwarka, the capital of Hindu god Krishna. "The area off the Samudranaraya temple at (present day) Dwarka is known to contain structures which have been widely reported and interpreted by renowned scholars. However, no scientific study of the area had been conducted so far," Alok Tripathi of the Archaeological Survey of India...