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Paliki peninsula on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands, Greece. Image credit: Christos Vittoratos / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Was Odysseus’ Ithaca Never an Island? Scholars Challenge Centuries-Old Assumption

Jul 13, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

For as long as readers have pored over Homer’s Odyssey they have pictured Ithaca, the homeland Odysseus fights for ten years to reach, as an island unto...

This map shows 332 submarine canyon networks on the seafloor of the Antarctic continent. Image credit: Riccardo Arosio & David Amblas, doi: 10.1016/j.margeo.2025.107608.

Researchers Create Catalog of Antarctic Submarine Canyons

Jul 21, 2025 by News Staff

Submarine canyons are deep, large-scale incisions found on most of the world’s continental margins. In Antarctica, they are widespread features driving...

Collins et al. estimated flow through 3 million river segments, identifying locations around the world marked by intense human water use, including parts of the Colorado, Amazon, Orange, and Murray-Darling river basins, shown as gray here. Image credit: NASA.

New Study Provides Estimates of How Much Water Courses through Earth’s Rivers

Apr 30, 2024 by News Staff

Accurate assessment of global river flows and stores is critical for informing water management practices, but current estimates of global river flows...

An UAP from a declassified video captured by a U.S. Navy aircraft. Image credit: U.S. Navy.

Study: Most Sightings of UAPs Occur in American West

Mar 1, 2024 by News Staff

Sightings of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), formerly known as unidentified flying objects (UFOs), have been reported throughout history. Given...

Map of Sahul showing the extent of the now-submerged continental shelf (dark gray), with the area of the Northwest Shelf demarcated by a dashed black box, and the present-day distribution of the Köppen climate groups (seasonal precipitation and temperature) showing the extent of modern-day Australia and New Guinea. The tropical distribution of Late Pleistocene sites containing early axe technology are shown as black circles, sites without early axe technology as gray circles, and sites demonstrating Late Pleistocene occupation of the now submerged continental shelves as white circles. Image credit: Peter Hiscock / Norman et al., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108418.

Up To Half Million People Once Lived on Now-Submerged Northwest Shelf of Sahul

Dec 20, 2023 by News Staff

The new-submerged Northwest Shelf of Sahul — the combined landmass of Australia and New Guinea at times of lower sea level — was a vast area...

Jamieson et al. discover an extensive relic pre-glacial landscape preserved beneath the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet despite millions of years of ice cover. Image credit: Jamieson et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-42152-2.

Geoscientists Discover Ancient River-Carved Landscape beneath East Antarctic Ice Sheet

Oct 25, 2023 by News Staff

Geoscientists from Durham University and elsewhere have discovered a landscape that appears to have been formed by rivers at least 14 million years ago...

The International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean Version 2 (IBCSO v2) is a digital bathymetric model for the area south of 50° S with special emphasis on the bathymetry of the Southern Ocean. Image credit: Dorschel et al.

Scientists Create New High-Resolution Map of Southern Ocean

Jun 9, 2022 by News Staff

After nine years of gathering, cleaning, processing and interpolating data, an international team of researchers this week released the second version...

Global inventory of subglacial lakes: (a) inventory of northern hemisphere subglacial lakes (SGLs); the top right inset shows the location of part a (red box) in the northern hemisphere; (b) inventory of SGLs beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet; the extents of larger lakes (such as PEL Lake and Lake Vostok) are defined by blue polygons; red circles represent stable lakes identified from radio-echo sounding (RES), and blue triangles represent active lakes that have been observed to drain at least once during the observation period; lakes labeled in green have been accessed and cleanly sampled with the exception of Glacier de Tête Rousse, which was monitored using boreholes (water level) and sonar (cavity geometry), and Lake Vostok. MIC - Mýrdalsjökull Ice Cap, VIC - Vatnajökull Ice Cap. Image credit: Livingstone et al., doi: 10.1038/s43017-021-00246-9.

Scientists Compile First Global Inventory of Subglacial Lakes

Jan 19, 2022 by News Staff

A multinational team of researchers has catalogued data on 773 subglacial lakes — repositories of ancient climate conditions, provide habitats for...

Oxygen deficient zone intensity across the eastern Pacific Ocean, where copper colors represent the locations of consistently lowest oxygen concentrations and deep teal indicates regions without sufficiently low dissolved oxygen. Image credit: Jarek Kwiecinski & Andrew Babbin.

High-Resolution Atlas of Pacific Ocean’s Oxygen Deficient Zones Created

Dec 28, 2021 by News Staff

A duo of MIT researchers has created the most detailed atlas of the world’s largest oxygen deficient zones, biogeochemical regions of the global ocean...

Paxman et al. mapped a huge ancient lake basin (outlined here in red) below the Greenland ice; redder colors signify higher elevations, green ones lower; a stream system incised into the bedrock that once fed the lake is shown in blue. Image credit: Paxman et al., doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116647.

Giant Ancient Lake Bed Discovered Deep under Greenland Ice Sheet

Nov 11, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University has discovered paleolake basin situated beneath the ice sheet in northwest...

The International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean Version 4.0. Image credit: Jakobsson et al, doi: 10.1038/s41597-020-0520-9.

Researchers Create New Bathymetric Map of Arctic Ocean

Jul 29, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Europe, the United States, Canada, South Korea, Greenland and China has produced the most detailed depth map of the Arctic Ocean...

The tectonic map of Zealandia. Image credit: GNS Science.

Geoscientists Release New Maps of Continent Zealandia

Jul 1, 2020 by News Staff

A team of scientists from GNS Science, New Zealand’s leading provider of Earth, geoscience and isotope research and consultancy services, has created...

Bed elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet color coded between minus 2 and 1 km (minus 1.2 and 0.6 miles) above sea level. The white lines delineate the basins from the ice sheet mass balance inter-comparison exercise (IMBIE). Image credit: Morlighem et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0510-8.

Scientists Create New Bed Topography Map of Earth’s Southernmost Continent

Dec 16, 2019 by News Staff

BedMachine Antarctica is a new bed topography map based on ice thickness data from different research institutes dating back to 1967, encompassing nearly...

The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica shows the continent in stunning detail. Image credit: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

New High-Resolution Map of Antarctica Unveiled

Sep 13, 2018 by News Staff

A team of cartographers and researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Ohio State University has produced a high-resolution terrain map of Antarctica...

Based on various lines of geological and geophysical evidence, particularly those accumulated in the last two decades, Nick Mortimer et al argue that Zealandia is not a collection of partly submerged continental fragments but is a coherent 4.9 million km2 continent. NC - New Caledonia; WTP - West Torres Plateau; CT - Cato Trough; Cf - Chesterfield Islands; L - Lord Howe Island; N - Norfolk Island; K - Kermadec Islands; Ch - Chatham Islands; B - Bounty Islands; An - Antipodes Islands; Au - Auckland Islands; Ca - Campbell Island. Image credit: Nick Mortimer et al, doi: 10.1130/GSATG321A.1.

Zealandia: Researchers Return from Expedition to Earth’s Seventh Continent

Sep 28, 2017 by News Staff

Earlier this year, Zealandia was confirmed as Earth’s seventh continent, but little is known about it because it’s 94% submerged under water. After...

Meet Zealandia, Earth’s New Continent

Feb 14, 2017 by Natali Anderson

Zealandia — a 4.9 million km2 region of the southwest Pacific Ocean — was once part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana and today it is...

Falkor Seamount. Image credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Newly-Discovered Seamount Named after Research Vessel Falkor

Oct 29, 2015 by News Staff

In November 2014, Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor discovered a seamount, or underwater mountain, 28,500 feet (8,700 m) on the ocean...

Members of the Kalkadoon Aboriginal tribe, circa 1900. Image credit: Vintage Queensland.

Australian Aboriginal Stories of Ancient Sea-Level Rise Preserved for 13,000 Years

Sep 24, 2015 by News Staff

According to a duo of Australian scientists, Aboriginal society has preserved memories of Australia’s coastline dating back to 11,000 – 5,300 BC. Members...

A 3D relief map of the volcanic cluster on the sea floor. The sea floor is represented by a dark blue color and there are four calderas rising out of the sea floor in shades of green, yellow, orange and red. Image credit: University of New South Wales.

Ancient Underwater Volcanoes Discovered off Australia

Jul 14, 2015 by News Staff

A team of researchers aboard an ocean-going research vessel called RV Investigator has discovered a cluster of 50-million-year-old volcanoes off the coast...