Coastal Connections
A Leatherback Changes the Familiar Picture of a Turtle Shell
A leatherback does not have the familiar hard, scuted shell of other sea turtles. Learn what that difference shows—and what a photograph cannot establish.
Follow the water
Coastal Connections
Follow the connections between rivers, shorelines and the open ocean.
Coastal Connections
A Coastal Map Begins Upstream When You Add the Watershed
The edge of the sea is not the beginning of everything that reaches it. Adding a watershed to a coastal map reveals connections that a narrow strip of…
Coastal Connections
A Water Sample Carries DNA Clues, but the Survey Still Needs a Method
Researchers can learn about marine animals from traces of DNA in water, even when the animals are not visible at the sampling moment. The sample is an entry…
Coastal Connections
Sea Ice Can Lose Salt Without the Ice Simply Disappearing
Freezing seawater does not turn the ocean into a uniform block with salt distributed everywhere in the same way. Ice crystals and the salty liquid between…
Coastal Connections
An Atoll’s Lagoon Helps You Read the Reef as a Shape
A ring of reef around open water tells a different spatial story from a reef growing directly along a shore. Looking at the relationship between reef, land,…
Coastal Connections
What a Hydrophone Records—and What the Recording Still Needs Explained
An underwater recording can reveal activity beyond the camera’s view. To interpret it, however, you need more than an interesting sound and a confident…
Coastal Connections
Ocean Oxygen Production and Oxygen Left Over Are Different Quantities
A headline about the ocean producing oxygen can sound as though every bit of that production simply accumulates in the atmosphere. Marine life also uses…
Coastal Connections
Deeper Water Adds Pressure Even When the Surface Looks Calm
Relate ocean depth to increasing pressure in a simple reading exercise while keeping the concept separate from practical diving guidance.