Earth is finally free to rise after hundreds of thousands of years of ice suppression.

Plastic pollution in the oceans has reached a stage where microplastics – pieces smaller than 5mm – now outnumber stars in our galaxy, according to UN secretary general António Guterres. 

World’s population is growing, so is the plastic wastes that people produce. According to the United Nations estimates, annually more than 8 million tons of plastics flow into the oceans.

Over the last decade we have become increasingly alarmed at the amount of plastic in our oceans. More than 8 million tons of it ends up in the ocean every year. If we continue to pollute at this rate, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050.

Hydrothermal vents host rare species at incredibly high density comparable to tropical rainforests or coral reefs.

Rising sea levels don’t have to spell doom for the world’s coastal wetlands.

Growing rice in the ocean sounds a little whacky, but ocean agriculture is an emerging form of food production that could have some real potential.

Welcome to the Pliocene – an ancient proxy for a future world in which big carbon can rewrite global temperatures and expanding oceans can swallow liveable land.

As with many other aspects of government policy, overfishing and other fishing-related environmental issues are a real problem, but it’s not clear that government intervention is the solution.

Marine Protected Area Day was observed in Africa for the first time on 1 August 2021.

If you are a scientist studying how carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are altering the ocean, you likely know who Andrew Dickson is—and can’t get along without him.

Scientists and policymakers are puzzling over how to get rid of a group of toxic chemicals found in streams and drinking water.

The Peruvian anchovy is a small fish with a big impact. Only about the size of an index finger, they make up the single largest fish catch in the world—sometimes up to 15% of the global haul.

Our planet would be unrecognizable without the ocean for myriad reasons, not least of which is the key role it plays in keeping our climate in check. A specific ocean layer, known as the twilight zone, can take a lot of the credit for making that happen.

The adage “out of sight, out of mind” has long summed up humans’ attitude to dumping personal and industrial waste. In a 1974 Scientific American article, the oceanographer Willard Bascom wrote that “the ocean is the plausible place for man to dispose of some of his wastes”. If done “thoughtfully”, he continued, “it will do no damage to marine life.”

South Africa is surrounded by 2,798km of coastline. Yet, oddly, the country doesn’t have a coherent maritime strategy underpinned by a related national strategy to safeguard its maritime interests.

Something strange is happening to the Antarctic’s sea ice.

Coastlines – the interface between land and sea – lie at the frontline in the battle against climate change impacts.

The sea ice around Antarctica likely had a record low surface area when it was at its maximum size this winter, a preliminary US analysis of satellite data showed Monday.

The world’s wildlife populations have plummeted by more than two-thirds since 1970 – and there are no signs that this downward trend is slowing.