Laid Bare 

Seafloor in South Pacific Ocean Devoid of Sediment. A bare zone at the bottom of the central South Pacific Ocean is completely devoid of sediment, marine geologist David Rea of the University of Michigan has discovered. It's the only seafloor beneath the world's oceans without sediment deposits. This broad region of ocean bottom is nearly the size of the Mediterranean Sea. It has been swept clean of sediment since the Late Cretaceous, Rea believes. He and colleagues published their findings in the October 2006 issue of the journal Geology.

Full Moon as Earthquake Trigger?

It happens once in a blue moon, the saying goes. Legend holds that blue moons—the second full moon in one month—are harbingers of unusual occurrences. In 2007, June has a blue moon: a full moon on June 1st and another on June 30th. Could a full moon, blue or otherwise, in fact be a trigger for rare events on Earth?

Stars Under the Sea

What do an astrophysicist, a marine biologist, and a computer programmer have in common professionally? If they're Zaven Arzoumanian, Brad Norman, and Jason Holmberg, respectively, they're using pattern-matching tools from astronomy to further whale shark conservation.

Reign of the Jellyfish

Jellyfish Overtake Fish in Namibian Waters. For years, marine ecologists have warned that populations of jellyfish might overtake those of fish in degraded coastal waters. It appears that their predictions have come to pass, according to Christopher Lynam and Andrew Brierley of the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. Lynam, Brierley, and colleagues published their conclusions in a 2006 issue of the journal Current Biology (vol. 16, no. 13).

Dybas, C.L. 2007. Ripple marks—The story behind the story. Oceanography 20(1):8–11, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2007.94.

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