September is a time for end-of-summer traditions, whether it is a back-to-school ritual or one last camping trip to soak up the last of the summer sun. In the Arctic, the end of summer is marked by a very ordinary event: the sea ice minimum. One day this month, more Arctic sea ice will form than melts. And the annual pattern of increased Arctic sea ice will begin, culminating in ice packs that stretch from the Central Arctic Ocean to the coastal seas along the shores of Russia, Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Norway.
People have lived along the shores of the Arctic Ocean for thousands of years. Arctic residents are very familiar with this pattern of sea ice melting in the warmer season and refreezing in the cold months. In fact, Arctic ecosystems, marine wildlife and people are organized around this annual cycle.
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What’s quite extraordinary, however, is where this freezing is starting: much nearer to the North Pole than the coasts. That’s because the Central Arctic Ocean—covered in sea ice year-round for much of my lifetime—now features increasing amounts of open water at the end of the Arctic summer.
The Central Arctic Ocean, 1.1 million square miles of international waters surrounding the North Pole, lies at the heart of the Arctic. Yet until sea ice began its unprecedented retreat, it was completely covered in ice year-round. In 2007, even Arctic experts were caught by surprise when they discovered 40% of it was open water in September. The same occurred in 2012. Other years varied widely from low to high.
The precise number for lowest sea ice extent in 2024 will be determined after the fact when all the satellite measurements are in. But looking at daily numbers through today, 2024 won’t be the lowest on record—maybe “just” the sixth lowest. Yet, we can see the bigger picture when we look across multiple years of data. In the last 10 years, for example, an average of 20.5 % of the Central Arctic Ocean was open water in September. This is the highest amount in the satellite record which showed less than 1% as open water in the decades before 1994.
As interesting as they are, these numbers do not adequately describe how radical a shift this represents for the Arctic Ocean and for human interactions with it.
High seas are defined as parts of the ocean beyond 200 nautical miles of coasts. Although most high seas areas are much less studied and understood than coastal seas, the Central Arctic Ocean stands out as one of the least understood marine environments on Earth. As we learn more, we are realizing that it is also one of the most important.
Expeditions have mapped new deepwater corals and seamounts, discovered new species of plankton found nowhere else on Earth, and found much more biological activity beneath the ice in winter than scientists ever expected. Measurements have confirmed that the Central Arctic Ocean is the world’s quietest ocean. And new studies confirm that changes to Arctic sea ice contribute to alteration of the jet stream, leading to more extreme weather events thousands of miles away.
While high seas areas have slowly become subject to some codes of conduct for human behavior, the sudden (on a geological scale) melting of sea ice creates a new risk. Industries and nations interested in the Central Arctic Ocean will arrive ahead of both science and common sense rule-making.
Arctic coastal nations are asserting ownership of more than 95% of the seabed underlying the Central Arctic Ocean—meaning deep-sea mining could occur. And the Central Arctic Ocean has been proposed as a shortcut for industrial goods to connect factories to global markets along a Transpolar Shipping Route. Yet no adequate knowledge or rules are in place for either of these industries to operate safely in such an extreme and globally important place.
When faced with a similar threat to the Central Arctic Ocean from the potential start of commercial fishing, the global community negotiated an international agreement to place a binding moratorium on high-seas fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean. This agreement established a multinational cooperative research program, recognized the special relationship Arctic Indigenous peoples have to the Arctic and ensured their active participation in implementation of the agreement. Coming into force in 2021, the ten signatory countries are now planning joint research using science and Indigenous Knowledge to better understand the Central Arctic Ocean.
As the Arctic days shorten, sea ice is beginning to grow again. But if we want our children to understand this very ordinary cycle in the Arctic, we need to take extraordinary action to protect the Central Arctic Ocean. Learn more about what Ocean Conservancy is doing to protect this global treasure.
The post Protecting the Central Arctic Ocean appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.
Ocean Acidification
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026. Click here for the full story.
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026
Our ocean is an incredibly vast and mysterious place. And there is no place where that is more evident than the deepest ocean area in the world: the legendary Mariana Trench. Located east of the Philippines, the Mariana Trench lies in the Mariana Archipelago in the western portion of the North Pacific. The greater area of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument is made up of more than 95,000 square miles of ocean. Beneath these waters lie incredibly complex aggregations of submerged islands and volcanoes … and of course, an astoundingly massive trench.
Dive in with us to have your biggest questions answered about the famed Mariana Trench.
How deep is the Mariana Trench?
The deepest part of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Deep, is almost 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. For context, Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet above sea level, so the Mariana Trench is about 7,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall. For one more comparison, the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet below sea level. The Challenger Deep is in waters nearly three times deeper than this ship’s final resting place.
Due to its enormous size, the Mariana Trench has at times been affectionately nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the ocean. This is certainly a picturesque image, but don’t let the mammoth size of this U.S. national terrestrial park fool you into thinking the Mariana Trench matches its size. The trench’s footprint is estimated to be 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon’s, and to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, you’d need to descend through almost six Grand Canyons stacked on top of each other before you’d reach the seafloor.
Oh … and did we mention it’s five times wider than it is deep? It’s about 43 miles wide!
What is Challenger Deep, and how long would it take to reach it?
Challenger Deep is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. Fewer than 30 people have ever journeyed to this area. The trek below the surface is long, dark and time-consuming, and it’s not an expedition considered lightly by scientists and explorers.
The first people to descend into the depths of this area in 1960 were oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, and it took them close to five hours to reach Challenger Deep. Since then, more advanced submersibles have been created, but it still takes two to four hours for modern vessels to reach such depths. For example, explorer and filmmaker James Cameron reached the seafloor in a little more than 2.5 hours in the first documented solo submarine dive to the area, and it took oceanographer Dr. Dawn Wright about four hours in 2022. It is crucial that these submersibles descend slowly and steadily beneath the surface, as the immense water pressure compounds with every mile a submersible descends. Speaking of pressure …
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What is the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?
If you thought the depth of the Mariana Trench was its only jaw-dropping feature, think again. Water pressure is one of the most important factors affecting deep-sea life. In the ocean, pressure increases by one atmosphere for every 33 feet (10 meters) of depth. One atmosphere (a unit of measurement for pressure equivalent to average air pressure at sea level) is equal to about 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI), which is the approximate standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. If you were to convert atmospheric pressure into weight, one atmosphere is about the weight of a bowling ball. Stay with me, friends.
If a vessel were to dive 2,000 feet below the surface, the pressure would equal that of 60 bowling balls stacked atop every square inch of that submersible. But 60 bowling balls is simply nothing compared to the pressure in the Mariana Trench. The atmospheric pressure at the depths of Challenger Deep is equal to about 16,000 PSI. That pressure is about the same as the weight of an entire full-grown elephant on every square inch of a submersible!
Need a more extreme comparison? If a human were to be placed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure would be equal to that of 50 jumbo jets piled on top of a person!
Do any animals live in the Mariana Trench?
The depths of the Mariana Trench come with immense pressure and extreme darkness, but somehow, life finds a way to survive. Organisms that live at an extreme depth, like that of Challenger Deep, have to be highly adapted to low temperatures (typically just above freezing), high pressure and virtually no light at all.
Species found in the depths of the Mariana Trench might look vastly different from animals from other ocean depths because their anatomy has been refined to thrive in harsh conditions. At such great depths, these animals typically depend on chemosynthesis (using nutrient-rich waters being pumped out of hydrothermal vents) or descending detritus (dead matter that has fallen from higher parts of the ocean) for food, such as whale falls. Just a handful of these animals include species of octopuses and squids, sea cucumbers, amphipods, sea jellies, shrimp, sea worms and some wild-looking fish!
In 2025, more than 7,000 new species were discovered in the Mariana Trench, including the hadal snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei). This is the deepest-dwelling fish currently known to science. Now, the fish has been dubbed “the Mariana snailfish.”
How was the Mariana Trench formed?
The process by which the Mariana Trench was created is a geologically fascinating one known as subduction. On the Earth’s surface, there are thin plates that cover the planet’s mantle, which is made of molten rock. If two of these plates collide, one pushes down into the Earth’s mantle while the other is pushed over the bottom plate. When this happens, a trench is formed from the drag of the bottom plate. This process can sometimes create incredibly strong earthquakes. The plates that forged the Mariana Trench’s creation are estimated to be up to approximately 180 million years old.
This trench was unknown to scientists until 1875. It was then that a team of explorers on the HMS Challenger measured the depth of the sea by simply lowering a weighted rope into the water. They were baffled when they measured that first portion of the seafloor to be five miles below the surface. And so was born the origin of some of the most daring deep-sea explorations known to mankind to date.
Is the Mariana Trench protected?
The Mariana Trench is in waters off Guam and the Mariana Islands. The region is protected from some human activities under its status as a marine monument. The creation of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument signified that international, national and local leaders all recognize the importance of protecting this area.
However, just because the region is protected does not mean it’s not vulnerable to modern threats to ocean health. Plastic bags have been spotted in the Mariana Trench during several expeditions, highlighting the far-reaching impact of the marine debris problem. No corner of our ocean is safe from the ever-present threat of plastic pollution. The reality of a changing climate makes the future well-being of wondrous places like the Mariana Trench uncertain. What’s more: More than 70% of the global ocean has yet to be mapped. And what we don’t yet know about, we cannot wisely work to protect.
It’s up to us to work together to defend our ocean, from the sandy shores of our favorite beaches to the deepest, darkest parts of the sea. Together, we can work to protect our ocean as a whole, which ultimately helps protect treasured places like Challenger Deep.
Find out how you can join Ocean Conservancy’s wave of momentum to secure a healthy ocean and a thriving planet, forever and for everyone!
The post The Mysteries of the Mariana Trench appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.
Intro
At the western tip of Luzon, which is the biggest island of the Philippines, lies the small coastal town of Bolinao. Tourists seldom find their way here as it takes around seven hours to get here by bus from Manila. Still, you can spot foreigners walking around every now and then, but they really stand out among the Filipinos. A reason for their presence is often that they study or work at the Bolinao Marine Laboratory (BML), which belongs to the University of the Philippines (UP). It is one of the seven research institutions participating in the GAME project 2026. Every year, GAME brings together Master’s students from all over the world to experience different cultures and conduct globally replicated experiments in marine ecology.