Molluscs that have shells - like pipis, clams and oysters - have to build their own shell from scratch. And they keep building it their whole life, using chemicals from the sea and their own bodies.
Eastern rock lobster on sale at Sydney’s fish market. Our preference for a limited variety of seafood drives up prices and threatens the industry’s sustainability.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Australian fishing boats throw away up to half the fish they catch. To make the seafood industry sustainable, we need to eat all the fish that get caught.
The scientific drilling ship JOIDES Resolution arrives in Honolulu after successful sea trials and testing of scientific and drilling equipment.
IODP
The ocean floor holds unique information about Earth’s history. Scientific ocean drilling, which started 50 years ago, has yielded insights into climate change, geohazards and the key conditions for life.
The GBR Foundation fills a gap in funding research that might be seen as too much of a risk by other agencies.
AAP Image/Alison Godfrey
Federal Labor has pledged to withdraw the A$443 million given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. But the foundation’s decisions are led by science, and free of undue influence, its chief scientist says.
Successive governments have seen the Great Barrier Reef not just as a scientific wonder, but as a channel to further economic development.
Superjoseph/Shutterstock.com
The $444 million awarded to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has been criticised as a politically calculated move. But governments have been asking what the reef can do for them ever since colonial times.
Sustained ocean warming could greatly reduce catches of fish like these herring photographed off Norway.
Jacob Botter
Fish are a key food source for millions of people worldwide. But a recent study finds long-term warming over the next 200 years could starve tiny plankton, with impacts that would ripple up food chains.
The Byron Scar, left behind by an undersea landslide. Colours indicate depths.
Samantha Clarke
The ocean floor off Australia’s east coast bears the scars of numerous subsea landslides, which have potentially triggered tsunamis over the past several millennia.
Salt flows down rivers to the ocean.
Shutterstock/Masonjar
Surveying the bottom of the ocean turns out to be far from easy. But there was something wonderful about seeing animals we have only read about in old books.
Why spend three months completing a lap of Antarctica (and probably getting seasick along the way)? It’s the only way to get vital clues about the remote Southern Ocean and its influence on the planet.
Steven Morgan deploys ABLE robots in a swimming pool to test how well their programs simulate larval behavior.
University of California, Davis
Most ocean species start out as larvae drifting with currents. Using underwater robots, scientists have found that larvae use swimming motions to affect their course and reach suitable places to grow.
Genetic analysis shows that marine bacteria broke down much of the oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. These findings could lead to more effective cleanups after future spills.
In 1985, when CSIRO’s marine labs were launched, a seven-day weather forecast was little better than chance. Now, thanks to advances in our understanding of the oceans, our predictions are far better.
A new research expedition is documenting the deep-sea denizens of the Perth Canyon, such as this flytrap anemone and basket star.
UWA/Schmidt Ocean Institute
The Perth Canyon, off Australia’s west coast, is twice the size of the Grand Canyon. But only now, with the help of remote-controlled submarines, are researchers finding out what lives in its depths.
Coral reefs, the rain forests of the sea.
Brian Zgliczynski
A new ecology study doesn’t focus on how people degrade the environment. Instead, it untangles the way physical factors in a pristine ecosystem drive the biology of what lives there.
RV Investigator at sea – It will be formally commissioned in Hobart today.
CSIRO
We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our deepest oceans, and only 12% of the ocean floor within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone has so far been mapped. The reason for this is…