Oceans

Over six months, healthy coral is bleached and then covered with algae. Scientists say bleaching has hit 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia’s “biggest ever environmental disaster.”

A mass die-off of at least 40 whales last summer caused the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare an “unusual mortality event.” Many of those whales were spotted on or around the Kodiak Archipelago.

Butter clam samples collected earlier this week from Outer Point on Douglas Island showed elevated levels of biotoxin.

You’ve probably never heard a beluga whistle or a narwhal click. Not many people have. But Michael Mahoney’s students are experts on the bioacoustics of these mammals, after spending hours logging recordings of their sounds from the Chukchi Sea and Northwest Passage.

Data collected by Oregon State University researchers shows an unprecedented number of baby starfish, or sea stars, survived the summer and winter of 2015.

Between decommissioned defense sites and contaminated currents, the Bering Strait Region is particularly vulnerable to toxic pollution.