Evidence from mud, charcoal, and feces suggests humans arrived in East Polynesia during the driest period in 2 millennia.
Pacific Ocean
Posted inScience Updates
Satellite Sleuthing Detects Underwater Eruptions
Satellite data helped scientists locate the volcanic source of a pumice raft floating in the South Pacific Ocean, illustrating their promise in locating and monitoring undersea eruptions.
Posted inNews
The Ecological Costs of Removing California’s Offshore Oil Rigs
Offshore oil- and gas-drilling platforms are rich habitats for fish, and removing them completely would result in a loss of over 95% of fish biomass, new research has revealed.
Posted inNews
Submarine Canyons Breed Megawaves in Japan
The canyons act like a prism, focusing waves into mammoths of destruction.
Posted inNews
Gravel Gives Clues to the Strength of Paleotsunamis
The roundness of sediment deposits may shed light on how big tsunamis were in the past and how to evaluate hazards in the future.
Posted inNews
Volcanic Eruption Creates Temporary Islands of Pumice
Rafts of pumice, spewed from an undersea volcano, recently appeared in the South Pacific. These transient, movable islands are important toeholds for marine life like barnacles, coral, and macroalgae.
Posted inNews
Great Pacific Garbage Patch Swim Nears Conclusion
Long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte seeks to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the ocean.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How the Ocean’s “Shadow Zone” Breathes
A new study uses Argo floats and an ocean circulation model to track the sources supplying pulses of oxygen to the deep North Pacific.
Posted inEditors' Vox
The Kuroshio Current: Artery of Life
The waters of the Kuroshio Current in the northwestern Pacific Ocean transport heat, salt, and organic and inorganic matter from south to north, shaping the ocean ecosystem.
Posted inNews
Marshall Islands Nuclear Contamination Still Dangerously High
Today’s radiation levels at some locations were higher than in areas affected by the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters.