Spotlight: The Miraculous Corals We Could Lose to the Climate Emergency

Coral reefs are among the miracles in our planet's remarkable ocean. They're symbiotic communities of living organisms, a true marvel of biological processes. But their survival is severely threatened by climate change. Here's what we're losing, from whip corals to fan corals to stony corals to lophelia corals to coral species that haven't even been …

Spotlight: The Ocean Crisis & One Thing YOU Can Do

As climate change heats up our planet's remarkable ocean and the teeming life in its waters is incredibly stressed and dies off, we must witness what we're losing. There are entire universes of life below the blue-gray surface that we see when we look out at our ocean. They are dying rapidly. Our oceans are …

Notable Ocean Quotable: Our Fate and the Oceans

Each of us can make a difference for our planet's remarkable ocean, which supports all life on earth. America's national treasure, marine biologist and explorer extraordinaire, Sylvia Earle, has been a relentless voice of inspiration, encouraging us all to do what we can where we are to learn about the wonders of our marine planet and to support ocean exploration and conservation

Spotlight: Deep-Sea Coral Close-up From NOAA Ocean Exploration

NOAA's vessel Okeanos and its crew of scientists, researchers and mariners have been exploring seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean this month as part of the 2021 North Atlantic Stepping Stones: New England and Corner Rise Seamounts expedition. Thanks to fantastic livestreaming technology, we can watch what they're seeing in real-time as their ROV plies the …

Pandemic Escape: Glow-In-The-Dark Corals Light Up The Deep Sea

Way, way down in the oceans' darkest depths, lights glow and sparkle. For millennia, bioluminescence has been seen in oceans around the world. Indeed, around 50 A.D., Pliny the Elder wrote that one could rub the slime of a certain luminous jellyfish, possibly Pelagia noctiluca, onto a walking stick to make it double as a torch. …

Pic o’ the Week: Yellownose Gobies in Brain Coral

A healthy coral reef can be one of the most colorful places on earth: here, a pair of curious yellownose gobies gaze out from their refuge of richly textured bolder brain coral. Todd Mintz snapped this stunning photo in of yellownose gobies, Elacatinus randalli, and bolder brain coral in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean. This pic won …

Pic o’ the Week: Elphinstone Reef, Red Sea, Egypt

Photo by Alfonso Gonzalezused under Creative Commons license A classic and lovely view of a vibrant coral reef in the Red Sea - to remind us of the dynamic and colorful underwater worlds of the Middle East, and to remind us to support the divers, dive operators and conservationists of the Middle East during these …

The Gulf’s deepwater corals

The New York Times has an excellent article today discussing state of science and research about deepwater corals in the Gulf of Mexico. As we've blogged, the site of the BP oil disaster has been explored and mapped to some degree by NOAA - some of it funded by the Minerals Management Service. During last …

Life in the Gulf’s Mississippi Canyon

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon's well is spewing 5,000 gallons of oil a day into the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico's Mississippi Canyon. Engineers try to build a dome over the gusher, while others work on digging a "relief" well nearby in a bid to stop the flow. Today we revisit some of …