In 2025, US scientists poured 16,500 gallons of lye and bright pink dye into the Gulf of Maine, the first federally approved attempt to reverse the ocean's rising acidity
In nearly seventy years of deep-sea exploration, researchers compiled 43,681 submersible dive records — and found that humans have visually observed less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, according to a Science Advances study published in May 2025.
Greenland is being swarmed by autonomous drones and underwater robots as scientists race to answer one question: How close is Earth to a climate tipping point?
Scientists have now made the most comprehensive tally yet of deep-sea exploration — 43,681 dive records dating back to 1958 — and found that humans have directly seen less than 0.001% of the deep ocean floor, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, leaving the vast seafloor across 66% of Earth’s surface essentially unobserved.