Metal Barrels Dumped Off The Coast Of Los Angeles Are Encircled By Mysterious While Halos And Scientists Think They Finally Know Why

www.smithsonianmag.com

At least some of the barrels contain caustic alkaline waste, which has made the surrounding ecosystems inhospitable to most life forms, a new study suggests

A Flooded Quarry, a Mysterious Millionaire and the Dream of a New Atlantis

the Guardian

An innovative mission on the Welsh border, funded by an anonymous private investor, has begun work to create a ‘permanent human settlement’ under the sea.

The thousands of shipping containers lost at sea waiting to burst open

The Independent

Russ Lewis has picked up some strange things along the coast of Long Beach Peninsula in Washington state over the years: Hot Wheels bicycle helmets with feather tufts, life-size plastic turkey decoys made for hunters, colorful squirt guns. And Crocs — so many mismatched Crocs.

The 6 preparation rules you should follow for sailing across oceans

Yachting World

I completed my eighth and most recent Atlantic crossing in February, sailing from Mindelo, Cape Verde, to Barbados aboard our Farr 65 Falken with 10 crew. The 2,200-mile passage took just under 11 days — fast, comfortable and dreamy, exactly as you hope for a tradewind crossing in the tropics.

Broken Blades, Angry Fishermen and Rising Costs Slow Offshore Wind

The collapse of a giant wind turbine blade off the Massachusetts coast confirmed Peter Kaizer’s worst fears about the dangers a new clean energy business could pose to fishermen like him.

Dragons and Sharks on a Beach Near You: The Story of the Great Lego Spill

On a miserable, drizzly day in late June, Hayley Hardstaff, a marine biologist, took a walk along Portwrinkle Beach in Cornwall, England, and discovered a dragon. It was a Lego piece — black, plastic and missing its upper jaw. Ms.

A New Proposal to Bring the Ocean Back to Life

The Atlantic

Pumping a clean-energy by-product into “dead zones” could restore local ecosystems. This article was originally published by Hakai Magazine.

Long Way Home

When I first wrote the Dutchman, ten years ago, he was sailing around the world alone for the sixth and final time. His plan, he said, was to keep on sailing, continuing this last circumnavigation until the day he died, or until he found some unknown place “behind the horizon.

Rāhui and the Art of Marine Conservation

Hakai Magazine

In French Polynesia, an ancient practice puts everyone in charge of protecting the sea. This article is also available in audio format. Listen now, download, or subscribe to “Hakai Magazine Audio Edition” through your favorite podcast app.

The Law of the Sea

I write this essay in an office in Singapore, where I have just learned an arresting fact.

An Ominous Heating Event Is Unfolding in the Oceans

WIRED

To call what’s happening in the oceans right now an anomaly is a bit of an understatement. Since March, average sea surface temperatures have been climbing to record highs, as shown in the dark line in the graph below. 

The Inside Story of the U.N. High Seas Treaty

The New Yorker

The open ocean, which is home to millions of species and generates much of the oxygen we breathe, is a mostly lawless place.

Chris Bertish Fought Through Raucous Waves and a Head Injury on His Historic Trans-Pacific Trek

Outside Online

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In a First, Tiny Crustaceans Are Found to “Pollinate” Seaweed like Bees of the Sea

Scientific American

Life as a single seaweed along a rocky coastline can be tough. Though there are plenty of potential partners out there, stalks of these large algae are stuck in place, and possible mates often keep their reproductive structure hidden.

The Power of the Waves

Nautilus | Science Connected

Sea waves are among the world’s most misunderstood phenomena. When an incoming wave breaks on the shoreline, it appears as though the water has come to the end of a long journey, but in fact the water itself has hardly moved.

Eerie Photo Proves The Existence of Milky Seas, a First

Scientific American

For centuries, mariners have told stories of sailing at night in “milky seas”—ephemeral patches of steadily glowing ocean that make the water’s surface appear ghostly green or white, sometimes stretching from horizon to horizon.

When Shipping Containers Sink in the Drink

The New Yorker

There is a stretch of coastline in southern Cornwall known for its dragons. The black ones are rare, the green ones rarer; even a dedicated dragon hunter can go a lifetime without coming across a single one.

Who Wants to Eat a Gooey Jellyfish? Pretty Much Everyone in the Ocean.

Scientists had long assumed that few creatures dined on these gelatinous animals. But new research suggests that jellyfish may be an important part of the ocean’s food supply. For a hungry fish in search of a meal, a jellyfish would seem to be a huge disappointment.

How “Termites of the Sea” Have Shaped Maritime Technology

JSTOR Daily

For most of history, ships and docks were at the mercy of spineless, often invisible pests that wreaked far more havoc than the sirens or sea-monsters of lore. They are the marine wood borers: shipworms, pillbugs, or gribbles.

The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind

The Atlantic

In the 20th century, the largest animals that have ever existed almost stopped existing. Baleen whales—the group that includes blue, fin, and humpback whales—had long been hunted, but as whaling went industrial, hunts became massacres.