Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Oceans Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on September 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on ocean health and economy. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Exploring the impact of climate change, overfishing and pollution on marine life and habitats.
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As the International Seabed Authority moves to permit the mining of unique deep-sea habitats, calls grow for it to disclose secretive deliberations about the environmental consequences of extracting valuable minerals from the ocean floor.
California has seen a record-breaking number of whale entanglements over the past three years. Now the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the state for failing to protect the imperiled marine mammals.
Massive gatherings of the marine mammals can result in stampedes that crush calves. Conservationists are pushing to have the animal protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
A review finds that just 77 studies of the population genetics of deep ocean invertebrate have been conducted since 1970 as plastic pollution, mining and other human activities increasingly imperil marine life of which little is known.
Studying whales in the wild can be difficult and expensive, but drones are now cheaply gathering huge amounts of data on the mammals’ health by capturing samples of their mucus.
Canada’s forthcoming Lancaster Sound conservation area would ban resource extraction while allowing local Inuit communities to benefit from hunting, fishing and tourism.
New research by Australian scientists suggests that underwater air guns used to search for oil and gas deposits are so loud that they could change humpback whales’ migratory behavior.
Researchers are trying to figure out what the appearance of millions of bioluminescent pyrosomes off the United States’ northwest coast means for the food chain, fisheries and ocean health.
Hydrothermal vent fields on the seabed are rich in copper, gold and other valuable metals, but scientists have found that some are home to unique animals found nowhere else on Earth.
After years of talks, the U.N. has taken a major step toward an international treaty to preserve the biodiversity of the high seas to combat climate change, overfishing and plastic pollution.
In recent weeks, nearly 2 percent of the imperiled North Atlantic right whale population has perished, while humpback whales continue to die in unusual numbers.
Jeff Orlowski, director of a new documentary that filmed the real-time death of coral reefs from rising temperatures, talks about how to depoliticize ocean issues to reach a broad audience.
A review of five years of research highlights the importance of the high seas to the global ecosystem and the peril they face from climate change, pollution and other human impacts.
After years of discussions, diplomats are meeting this week for a final push to put an accord protecting marine ecosystems in the open ocean before the United Nations General Assembly.
Scientist Tim O’Hara and an international research team made worldwide headlines when they returned from a deep-sea expedition with bizarre species that live at the bottom of the ocean off Australia.
Information on marine conditions is vital to ocean preservation efforts. A new study of five years of data collected by the Ocean Health Index reaches some surprising conclusions.
Jorge Alberto Angulo-Valdes Holds an Associated Faculty Position, CIM-UH
THE CONVERSATION: The two nations are separated by just 103 miles of ocean, but have been adversaries for almost 60 years. One researcher believes that cooperation between marine researchers in Cuba and the U.S. can help build a diplomatic bridge.
New acoustic techniques that measure fish populations could potentially be used to help endangered species like the totoaba – and in turn the even rarer vaquita porpoise, which is on the brink of extinction.
Marine biologist David Gruber journeys to the deep sea to investigate how marine life that live in total darkness generate light to exchange information. Now he says he’s learning how to talk back.
In the first of our new series “Ocean Elders,” celebrated oceanographer Sylvia Earle delivers an urgent message to the world about overfishing, climate change, pollution and other threats to the health of the ocean: Wake up and take action!
The discovery of microplastics in deep water means scientists may have underestimated the extent to which plastic trash is contaminating the ocean – and its impact on fish, marine mammals and seabed dwellers.
As the Arctic Ocean’s spring sea-ice cover shrinks, microscopic zooplankton are declining with serious ramifications for the region’s food chain, from fish to seals to polar bears.
As the climate changes, the Arctic Ocean beckons Pacific salmon and other species from the south. What remains to be seen is whether this will benefit the Inuit or trigger an international race to exploit emerging resources in the central Arctic Ocean.
Cynthia Christman Marine Mammal Studies, the Alaska Arctic
Seen from above, beluga whales, polar bears and musk oxen offer a glimpse of the beauty – and value – offered by the Beaufort Sea and its shelf break, the line where the continental shelf ends and the deep ocean begins, writes biologist Cynthia Christman.
Churchill’s belugas may be heading for trouble, and Jack Orr wants to help them. He is tagging the whales in order to track them – and so establish their preferred habitat as part of a program to protect the belugas from the effects of climate change.
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