The Whale Graveyard at the Bottom of the World

Inexpensive seafloor-hopping submersibles could stoke deep-sea science—and mining

A company called Orpheus Ocean wants to go “deep for cheap.”

‘The Antarctic is the last frontier’: the quest to save Shackleton’s Endurance

Amid fears the wreck will be more accessible to explorers – and new species – as the climate warms, conservationists want to create the region’s first underwater protected area

Deepest and most extensive whale graveyard discovered in Indian Ocean

Some remains found in Diamantina fracture zone date back more than 5m years and reveal species and ecosystems unknown to science

Nature study: More icebergs in the Arctic

The number of icebergs in the Arctic has increased sharply since the 2000s. This is due to the destabilisation of large glaciers in north-east Greenland and parts of the Russian Arctic as well as the increasing mobility of sea ice. The result: Stones rain down from the melting icebergs, forming new hard-substrate habitats for marine life on the soft seafloor. This gradually alters the existing communities in the deep sea. At the same time, the increasing presence of icebergs also poses greater risks to shipping and fisheries. These findings were reported by a research team led by the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the journal Nature.

Deep sea an untapped ‘evolutionary engine’ says new study

The deep sea is a unique ‘evolutionary engine’ with one of the richest and most unexplored sources of genetic diversity on Earth, according to a major new study that has assessed its potential to transform biotechnology and DNA sequencing technologies.

745-mile whale graveyard found at the bottom of Indian Ocean

A 5.3-million-year old fossil was lurking inside this extensive whale fall.

Newly discovered “whale necropolis” enhances understanding of deep-sea ecology

Researchers from the Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering (IDSSE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with the University of Pisa, Italy, and the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere Research, New Zealand, have now documented the world’s deepest and largest known aggregation of whale fossils and active whale-fall ecosystems. This deep-sea site, referred to as a “whale necropolis” due to its vast size, is located in the Diamantina Zone of the southeastern Indian Ocean and contains evidence of cetacean falls for at least 5.3 million years.