A trial is underway to restore damaged coral on the Great Barrier Reef using electricity. The reef has been severely assaulted in recent years by cyclones and back-to-back heatwaves. Nathan Cook at conservation group Reef Ecologic and his colleagues are attempting to regrow surviving coral fragments on steel frames. The frames are placed on damaged parts of the reef and stimulated with electricity to accelerate the coral’s growth (see video).

A ship’s markings may look like hieroglyphs, but to industry insiders they tell an important story. By Erin Van Rheenen .

The world’s oceans are likely to become more acidic than at any time in the past 14 million years, scientists have found. New research led by Cardiff University has shown that under a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, ocean acidification is likely to hit unprecedented levels.

How a piece of trash can travel from land to Henderson Island, an uninhabited, remote island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean.

When your mouth is tiny, teamwork can help to take down enormous prey. By Christie Wilcox.

On Sept. 8, an ungainly, 2,000-foot-long contraption will steam under the Golden Gate Bridge in what’s either a brilliant quest or a fool's errand. Dubbed the Ocean Cleanup Project, this giant sea sieve consists of pipes that float at the surface of the water with netting below, corralling trash in the center of a U-shaped design.

A management approach that combines manual removal and outplanting native sea urchin is effective in reducing invasive, reef-smothering macroalgae by 85 percent on a coral reef off Oʻahu, according to researchers. Globally, the health of coral reefs is threatened due to rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification. Local factors such as invasive macroalgae also pose a serious risk to coral reefs—monopolizing reef habitats and overgrowing and smothering native species, such as corals.

Residents are battling illness, plummeting tourist numbers and piles and piles of dead fish. By Katherine Hignett.

Full Screen Once in the middle of the ocean in a small boat, do not fall into despair, but rather immediately take on the accumulation of important reserves. Collect colorful balls, and lifebuoys,

Cigarette butts have long been the single most collected item on the world’s beaches, with a total of more than 60 million collected over 32 years.

Soon after it left the Port of Oakland, California, in February 2004, the shipping vessel Med Taipei hit a strong winter storm with violent 30-foot-high (9 meters) swells. Amid rolling waves, 15 shipping containers came loose and toppled overboard, sinking to the icy seafloor inside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

The short answer is that no one knows. Much has been written recently about the radioactive ocean-water plume that is due to hit the west coast sometime this year, possibly as soon as next month. The problem is that although we have models that predicts its arrival, we don't know exactly what the amount of radiation will be or where along the coast the radiation will end up.

Arctic Ocean ice may hold trillions of small pieces of plastic and other synthetic trash, and they are being released into the world's oceans as global warming melts the polar cap, researchers say. Though the finding is surprising and worrying, the possible harm to marine life is so far unknown, the authors concluded.

Scientists know more about the surface of the moon and Mars than they do about our own seafloor. Which helps explain the grand vision of the French architect Jacques Rougerie, who’s designed an ocean-going laboratory that rivals the Starship Enterprise in scope.

In this exciting excerpt from the first season of Jonathan Bird's Blue World, Jonathan learns how to play "keep away" with wild Spotted dolphins! Top see the whole episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r56U-YRzNuo

The world’s oceans need saving from pollution and overfishing, and an independent panel warned on Tuesday that urgent action was needed within five years. The Global Ocean Commission said cutting down on single-use plastics products, restricting fishing on the high seas, and establishing binding regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration are key parts of the rescue plan.

Since the 1970s, at least 0.1% of this plastic has ended up in the ocean. Conservative estimates put the amount of plastic bobbing around the ocean at 1 million tons (though it’s probably a lot more). Here’s the weird thing: It’s not there. Or at least, most of it isn’t.

This has to be the weirdest business deal of the week: The Church of England just sold a chunk of forest-covered land on the Fijian island Vanau Levu for $8.8 million to the government of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati. For the moment, Kiribati plans to use its 20-square-kilometer (7.7-square-mile) plot for agriculture and fish farming. But the investment is really a fallback for its 103,000 residents—a place to live if they must leave their home island.

Dust from the Sahara Desert provides most of the iron found in the Atlantic Ocean, according to research that also sheds light on how the oceans help sequester carbon dioxide

Watching flamboyantly colored fish flit about a saltwater aquarium can be relaxing. Figuring out where they came from, and whether they were caught in a sustainable manner, can be an exercise in frustration.

A container filled with millions of Lego pieces fell into the sea off Cornwall in 1997. But instead of remaining at the bottom of the ocean, they are still washing up on Cornish beaches today - offering an insight into the mysterious world of oceans and tides.

The people of Palau, a small island nation in the northwestern Pacific, have long realized that the health and prosperity of their nation depends on the ocean. Because of this realization, Palauans have always worked to protect their ocean resources. That’s why Palau has drawn the world’s top scientists and ocean writers, and why Palau has repeatedly been rated the world’s top diving destination.

The trouble with making a documentary about the deepest, most remote place on the planet, five miles below the surface of the ocean, is that there really isn't a whole lot happening down there. There are no monsters, no sunken alien warships, just an endless, featureless expanse.

Sunscreen has changed the lives of beach bums everywhere, allowing them to laze longer in the sun without their skin baking into a ruddy crisp. And it's most likely made them safer, protecting them from the ultraviolet radiation that causes nearly nine-tenths of cases of skin cancer. But the same chemical compounds that are helping people live longer, sunnier lives are hurting...

Peeing in the ocean: Many have done it, but few admit to it. Fortunately for beachgoers everywhere, our latest episode of Reactions explains why, from an environmental perspective, it is absolutely OK to pee in the ocean.

New research indicates that a current "pause" in global warming could be caused by the Atlantic Ocean, which is pulling heat from the atmosphere and taking it to its depths.

Scientists have discovered methane gas bubbling from the seafloor in an unexpected place: off the East Coast of the United States where the continental shelf meets the deeper Atlantic Ocean.

It's easy to get pessimistic about the state of the oceans. Coral reefs are dying. Various fish species are getting wiped out by overfishing. Jellyfish are taking over. But not all news is bad news. A recent study published in Marine Mammal Science found that blue whale populations off the coast of California have almost entirely rebounded after being nearly hunted to extinction in the 20th century. (Many thanks to Andrew Revkin for pointing out this study.)

The Obama administration announced late Wednesday that it is creating the largest marine reserve in the world by expanding an existing monument around seven U.S.-controlled islands and atolls in the central Pacific.

Until now, scientists had better maps of the surface of Mars than of this ocean floor. These images show for the first time a dramatic underwater landscape with mountains higher than Mont Blanc and ridges deeper than the Grand Canyon – all 4.5 kilometres below the surface of the Southern Indian Ocean. The discoveries were made as part of the hunt for the missing Malaysian airliner, flight MH370, which disappeared six months ago.

It is not every day you can announce the discovery of thousands of new mountains on Earth, but that is what a US-European research team has done. What is more, these peaks are all at least 1.5km high. The reason they have gone unrecognised until now is because they are at the bottom of the ocean. Dave Sandwell and colleagues used radar satellites to discern the mountains' presence under water and report their findings in Science Magazine.

It's worse than we thought. Scientists may have hugely underestimated the extent of global warming because temperature readings from southern hemisphere seas were inaccurate.

INCREDIBLE footage has emerged of a huge squid taking on a Greenpeace submarine. The video was released by Greenpeace on Vine and shows the squid spinning around and squirting black ink at the sub. The shocked crew pointed a light at the squid to try and scare it away. The squid continued to thrash around and whip the sub with its tentacles.

Many dream of living in an ocean city, but what is it actually like? Rose Eveleth asks the ruler of Sealand, the unusual settlement off the coast of England.

Most dead zones are found along the coast and are a result of chemicals triggering algae blooms.