http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- A USC scientist will take a research expedition this month into the heart of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean to explore the very limits of life on Earth. http://phys.org/news235639287.html Space & Earth Mon, 19 Sep 2011 08:21:47 EST news235639287 Their critics weren't convinced the first time, but Rice University researchers didn't give up on the "ice that burns." http://phys.org/news235306174.html Space & Earth Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:50:08 EST news235306174 Lamont-Doherty scientist Timothy Crone is at sea off the Northwest U.S. coast, dropping sensors into the deep ocean as part of a major initiative to better understand oceans, climate and plate tectonics. You can watch a live video feed from the robotic vehicle ROPOS and see it deploy instruments and take samples from 4500 feet down on the seafloor. http://phys.org/news233571846.html Space & Earth Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:05:41 EST news233571846 In the waters off the North Carolina coast, historically-significant World War II submarines and shipwrecks rest on the seafloor, a testament to a relatively unknown chapter in U.S. history. According to a new NOAA report, the shipwrecks are not only important for their cultural value, but also as habitat for a wide diversity of fishes, invertebrates and algal species. Additionally, due to their unique location within an important area for biological productivity, the shipwrecks are potential sites for examining community change. http://phys.org/news233494837.html Biology Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:41:20 EST news233494837 Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 335 Superfast Spreading Rate Crust 4 recently completed operations in Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 1256D, a deep scientific borehole that extends more than 1500 meters below the seafloor into the Pacific Ocean's igneous crust – rocks that formed through the cooling and crystallization of magma, and form the basement of the ocean floor. http://phys.org/news228651624.html Space & Earth Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:20:44 EST news228651624 A technical comment published in the current (May 27) edition of the journal Science casts doubt on a widely publicized study that concluded that a bacterial bloom in the Gulf of Mexico consumed the methane discharged from the Deepwater Horizon well. http://phys.org/news225629042.html Space & Earth Thu, 26 May 2011 14:00:05 EST news225629042 (PhysOrg.com) -- Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, seeps naturally from the seafloor in many places around the planet, including in the Gulf of Mexico. http://phys.org/news225459593.html Space & Earth Tue, 24 May 2011 12:40:11 EST news225459593 A new set of buoys in Alaska waters will help scientists understand how climate change may be affecting the pH level of northern seas. Researchers placed the first buoy last month. http://phys.org/news224439255.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 May 2011 17:14:37 EST news224439255 Writing in the scientific journal Nature, scientists have called for increased discussion of independent monitoring of deep-sea hydrocarbon industry activity with the aim of obtaining a better understanding of its ecological impact. http://phys.org/news224417099.html Space & Earth Thu, 12 May 2011 11:14:49 EST news224417099 An international team of scientists report on the first observatory experiment to study the dynamic microbial life of an ever-changing environment inside Earth's crust. University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science professor Keir Becker contributed the deep-sea technology required to make long-term scientific observations of life beneath the seafloor. http://phys.org/news223615768.html Space & Earth Tue, 03 May 2011 04:29:55 EST news223615768 It took 26 years for marine invertebrates living on the Port Valdez seafloor to stabilize after Alaska's Great Earthquake of 1964, according to a scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. http://phys.org/news222953021.html Space & Earth Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:23:53 EST news222953021 Each year, an estimated 10,000 shipping containers fall off container ships at sea. Although many of these containers float at the surface for months, most eventually sink to the seafloor. No one knows what happens to these containers once they reach the deep seafloor. http://phys.org/news218898508.html Space & Earth Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:09:08 EST news218898508 A set of maps created by the University of Sheffield have illustrated, for the first time, how our last British ice sheet shrunk during the Ice Age. http://phys.org/news216643695.html Space & Earth Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:48:27 EST news216643695 Analysis of a comprehensive database has revealed strong links between biological productivity in the surface oceans and patterns of biomass and abundance at the seafloor, helping to explain large regional differences. The research was conducted by an international, multi-institutional research team including scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), and incorporated data from the Census of Marine Life (CoML). http://phys.org/news216472811.html Space & Earth Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:22:15 EST news216472811 The unusually cold weather this winter has been caused by a change in the winds. Instead of the typical westerly winds warmed by Atlantic surface ocean currents, cold northerly Arctic winds are influencing much of Europe. http://phys.org/news214226685.html Space & Earth Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:25:22 EST news214226685 Ocean variability -- the perpetual changing of currents, temperatures, salinity and the contours of the seafloor -- alters the way sound travels through the water. A new analysis of how this variability affects sound waves could make it easier for Navy submarines to evade detection or for remotely operated underwater vehicles, like those used to combat the recent Macondo oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to maneuver more accurately. It could also aid in basic oceanographic and climate research by helping to calibrate systems for using sound waves to measure ocean properties such as temperature and seafloor topography. http://phys.org/news210419789.html Space & Earth Wed, 01 Dec 2010 09:56:43 EST news210419789 In a research paper published online Saturday in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, a publication of the American Geological Union (AGU), scientists reported the southern Baffin Bay off West Greenland has continued warming since wintertime ocean temperatures were last effectively measured there in the early 2000s. http://phys.org/news207416928.html Space & Earth Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:49:10 EST news207416928 (AP) -- Just 20 miles north of where BP's blown-out well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the sea, life appears bountiful despite initial fears that crude could have wiped out many of these delicate deepwater habitats. http://phys.org/news206950858.html Space & Earth Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:21:23 EST news206950858 (PhysOrg.com) -- Geologists studying the Jan. 12 Haiti earthquake say the risk of destructive tsunamis is higher than expected in places such as Kingston, Istanbul, and Los Angeles. http://phys.org/news205936269.html Space & Earth Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:31:31 EST news205936269 (PhysOrg.com) -- Four University of Rhode Island oceanographers depart next week for an international research expedition to the middle of the South Pacific Gyre - an area that is as far from any continent as is possible to go on Earth’s surface - to look for evidence of life far beneath the seafloor. http://phys.org/news205143213.html Space & Earth Fri, 01 Oct 2010 09:13:45 EST news205143213 Scientists have for the first time estimated the physical footprint of human activities on the deep seafloor of the North East Atlantic. The findings published in the journal PLoS ONE reveal that the area disturbed by bottom trawling commercial fishing fleets exceeds the combined physical footprint of other major human activities considered. http://phys.org/news203684995.html Space & Earth Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:10:08 EST news203684995 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists are in the early stages of building a fiber optic network on the seafloor for observing, in real time, deep-sea hydrothermal vents---places where super-heated water and minerals spew from Earth's crust offering clues about how life on the planet may have begun. http://phys.org/news201522011.html Space & Earth Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:20:46 EST news201522011  Fishermen barely eking out a profit because of overfishing of their target stock, shrimp, are now surviving by selling their bycatch (the low-value fish also caught in the large, indiscriminate nets). Although good for the fishermen, scientists warn that the prolonged trawl fishing along certain areas will lead to an ‘ecological catastrophe’ and the ‘permanent loss of livelihoods for fishers’ as well as other individuals who work in the industry. http://phys.org/news200066429.html Biology Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:20:03 EST news200066429 (PhysOrg.com) -- Glaciers that lose their footing on the seafloor and begin floating behave very erratically, according to a new study led by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego researcher. Floating glaciers produce larger icebergs than their grounded cousins and do so at unpredictable intervals, according to Scripps glaciologist Fabian Walter and colleagues in a paper to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. http://phys.org/news198780520.html Space & Earth Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:48:57 EST news198780520 Glaciers that lose their footing on the seafloor and begin floating behave very erratically, according to a new study led by a Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego researcher. http://phys.org/news198344487.html Space & Earth Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:20:02 EST news198344487 An international team of geoscientists has uncovered geological differences between two segments of an earthquake fault that may explain why the 2004 Sumatra Boxing Day Tsunami was so much more devastating than a second earthquake generated tsunami three months later. This could help solve what was a lingering mystery for earthquake researchers. http://phys.org/news197815460.html Space & Earth Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:00:09 EST news197815460 Tracking fish across Alaska's vast continental shelves can present a challenge to any scientist studying Alaska's seas. Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have successfully tested a possible solution in the form of underwater gliders. http://phys.org/news196430466.html Space & Earth Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:20:01 EST news196430466 Research by a small group of microbiologists is revealing how marine microbes live in a mysterious area of the Earth: the realm just beneath the deep ocean floor. The ocean crust may be the largest biological reservoir on our planet. http://phys.org/news195707007.html Biology Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:30:01 EST news195707007 (PhysOrg.com) -- The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami killed 230,000 people. The next time a tsunami threatens Indian Ocean nations, a lifesaving early warning system spearheaded by the EU will be in place. http://phys.org/news195110587.html Space & Earth Mon, 07 Jun 2010 06:24:24 EST news195110587 Scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, MS, (NRL-SSC) and Washington, D.C., recently completed an investigation of the acoustic properties of the deep seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico. http://phys.org/news192883236.html Space & Earth Wed, 12 May 2010 11:41:45 EST news192883236