EurekAlert! Marine Science - News Releases

News Releases

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 17-Aug-2025 20:11 ET (18-Aug-2025 00:11 GMT/UTC)

New species of ancient whale discovered on Victoria's Surf Coast

Museum Victoria
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at Museums Victoria’s Research Institute have described a new species of ancient whale from a 26-million-year-old fossil found near Jan Juc, on Wadawurrung Country, along Victoria’s Surf Coast.

Journal: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

Ocean architects at risk from impact of combined acidification and ocean warming

Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A research team from the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) has published a study in Communications Biology showing how ocean acidification and warming — two of the main consequences of global climate change — can simultaneously affect the structure, mineral composition, and microbiome of bryozoans, colonial invertebrates crucial for forming marine habitats. The findings point to potentially serious ecological consequences under a scenario of accelerated climate change.

Journal: Communications Biology

Natural archives in coral skeletons show sea-level rise began accelerating earlier than previously thought: NUS-led study

National University of Singapore
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A groundbreaking study by marine scientists has revealed that sea-level rise in the Indian Ocean began accelerating far earlier than previously thought, with corals providing an unbroken natural record of ocean change stretching back to the early 20th century. Published in Nature Communications, the study was led by Professor Paul Kench from the National University of Singapore. By analysing coral samples from the Maldives in the central Indian Ocean, the scientists reconstructed a century-long chronology of sea-level changes and climate shifts with remarkable precision. They were able to extend the sea-level record for the Indian Ocean back a further 60 years, all the way to the early 1900s, offering a much longer and clearer historical context for interpreting modern sea-level changes.

Journal: Nature Communications

Playtime a mostly mutual activity between dolphins and whales

Griffith University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New study explores positive – and negative – interactions between whales and dolphins.

Journal: Discover Animals

Meet IDEA: An AI assistant to help geoscientists explore Earth and beyond

University of Hawaii at Manoa
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new artificial intelligence tool developed by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa is making it easier for scientists to explore complex geoscience data—from tracking sea levels on Earth to analyzing atmospheric conditions on Mars. Called the Intelligent Data Exploring Assistant (IDEA), the software framework combines the power of large language models, like those used in ChatGPT, with scientific data, tailored instructions, and computing resources.

Funder: Pacific RISA program, a NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnership (CAP) team

Fresh fossil finds in Africa shed light on the era before Earth’s largest mass extinction

University of Washington
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of paleontologists, led by researchers at the University of Washington and the Field Museum of Natural History, is identifying the animals that thrived in southern Pangea — the planet’s single supercontinent at the time — just before the so-called “Great Dying” wiped out about 70% of terrestrial species, and an even larger fraction of marine ones.

Journal: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society

Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework advances protection of marine biodiversity

University of Oldenburg
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study has found that the global biodiversity targets adopted in 2022 are in line with scientific research and represent a significant improvement on the Aichi Targets adopted in 2010. In the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, an international research team reports that the updated targets effectively address the inherent complexity of biodiversity, thus reducing the risk of missing critical changes in marine biodiversity.

Journal: Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment

Ocean anomalies traveling North crucial for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation

Stockholm University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Anomalies in temperature and salinity that originate in the midlatitude North Atlantic can affect the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the Nordic Seas up to a decade later. The study published in Nature’s journal Communications Earth & Environment shows that the anomalies that travel northward with the Atlantic Water are an important part of the system, and actively modulate both the inflow of warm water into the Nordic Seas and the overflow of dense water back into the deep Atlantic.

Journal: Communications Earth & Environment
Funder: the ECO2NORSE project funded by the Swedish National Space Agency

Coastline of lakes an important part of global carbon cycle

Uppsala University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Lakes have long been viewed as sources of carbon dioxide emissions, but new research suggests they may actually act as carbon sinks. A study led by Uppsala University reveals that lake shorelines store more carbon than previously believed, highlighting the need to include these littoral zones in calculations of the continental carbon balance.

Journal: Nature Geoscience
Funder: Vetenskapsrådet, Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas, Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

Scientists discover rare deep-sea hydrothermal system in Western Pacific producing massive hydrogen emissions

Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered a massive hydrogen-rich hydrothermal system beneath the western Pacific seafloor, offering a new glimpse into deep-sea serpentinization—a process in which iron- and magnesium-rich rocks chemically react with water to form serpentine minerals and release hydrogen.

Journal: Science Advances

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