The geology of the ocean floor is truly spectacular — perhaps even more than land geology. Unfortunately, it's really hard to study.

The movement of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans and continents — or carbon cycle — regulates Earth’s climate, with the ocean playing a major role in carbon sequestration. A new study finds that ...

Until the 1950s, scientists didn't have a clear understanding of what the seafloor looked like. Geologist Marie Tharp turned years of data into easily digestible maps. She also discovered the ...

Imaging the structure of the deep seafloor is critical to understanding the biology and ecology of the largest living space on our planet. But to date, only about 20% of the ocean floor has been ...

In the early 1950s, Marie Tharp began connecting dots to map the ocean floor, using sonar technology. Sonar detects underwater objects by timing the echo of a soundwave and was originally developed to ...

Taken from the International Space Station by an astronaut, this is a view of Lake Van off Turkey, the largest soda lake on Earth. This region is prone to major earthquakes because of movement from ...

Global map showing gravitational variations caused by topographic changes. In purple higher features like seamounts and in green lower features like rift zones. There are better maps of the Moon’s ...