Scientific Ocean Drilling in the news

The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a very dynamic system, meaning that the reefs’ shapes and inhabitants are different depending on when and where you look. This is true for a snorkeller visiting different reefs, but also at the scale of the entire GBR, and over geological times. By synthesising two decades of research, scientists have recently described the reasons for this, and what supports the growth of the GBR.

In a finding that challenges the history of America, a vast aquifer of freshwater has been discovered off the coast of New York. Hidden beneath the seabed, this deposit could supply water to a megacity like New York for about 800 years, according to the Expedition 501.

Scientists have uncovered new evidence explaining the source of energy powering the Lost City hydrothermal field, a unique underwater ecosystem in the Atlantic Ocean. By drilling more than a kilometre beneath the seabed, researchers discovered superheated water with a chemical composition closely matching the fluid emerging from the Lost City's towering white chimneys, suggesting the vents are fed by a hidden reservoir of hot, hydrogen-rich water deep below the ocean floor.

The Great Barrier Reef is often described as a victim of modern climate stress, but new research suggests its story is even more complex. Scientists say the world's largest coral reef system passed through five periods of formation, drowning, and renewed growth over roughly 30,000 years.

A new University of Delaware study published in Science Advances sheds new light on a long-standing theory about Earth's ancient climate transitions, revealing that a major shift in global ice age cycles was actually triggered by the Southern Hemisphere, not the Northern.

An international expedition including University of Sydney researchers pieced together the clearest picture yet of how the Great Barrier Reef responded to dramatic environmental change over the past 30,000 years. Multiple studies since the expedition more than 10 years ago traced the reef’s retreat, regrowth and repeated collapse from the last ice age to the dawn of the modern reef.

To understand where the Earth might be headed, it’s important to know where it’s been. Throughout its existence, especially over the last couple million years, the Earth has experienced periodic cold and warm intervals, known as glacial and interglacial time periods. These cycles used to occur every 41,000 years. But somewhere between 1.2 million and 700,000 years ago, the cycle shifted to occurring every 100,000 years, a transition period known as Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT).

The eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is known for its large low-oxygen zones that are increasing in size, putting marine life at risk. New research shows that 15 million years ago, the opposite was true. A Michigan State University study found that oxygen-deficient waters were distributed very differently during the mid-Miocene Epoch than they are today. The Pacific Ocean’s oxygen-deficient zones were much smaller, while the Atlantic’s were much larger. Scientists had never documented this reversal before.

The impact that wiped out the dinosaurs may also have created one of Earth's most enduring underground ecosystems. A new study reveals that the Chicxulub crater hosted an active hydrothermal system for at least 8 million years, four times longer than scientists previously assumed.

A new international scientific study has uncovered a previously unknown geological structure beneath the Santorini–Kolumbo volcanic complex, offering fresh insight into the evolution of one of Europe’s most active volcanic systems. The research was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Earth’s atmosphere and struck the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, creating a crater called Chicxulub. That catastrophic event wiped out the mighty dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of all plant and animal species on Earth. The impact also formed an underground environment that possibly supported microbial life for millions of years, according to a new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.