X-Ray Mag #134

After months of speculation and financial uncertainty, the iconic dive equipment manufacturer Aqualung has been officially acquired by the HEAD Group, a global sports equipment powerhouse that also owns Mares, rEvo Rebreathers and Scuba Schools International (SSI).

Diamond miners have unearthed a 500-year-old Portuguese vessel in the Namib Desert, near where it meets the Atlantic coast, laden with gold coins, copper ingots and ivory.

NOAA remotely surveys the iconic WWII aircraft carrier and discovers a 1940s vehicle and a preserved flight deck.

New research documents social grooming with seaweed among killer whales, suggesting a rare form of tool use in marine mammals.
 

NOAA maritime archaeologists are “blown away and stunned“ by shipwrecks in Lake Ontario. A recent survey conducted within the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary has identified 17 additional shipwreck sites.

Archaeologists in Barcelona have uncovered the remains of a large medieval ship beneath the site of a former fish market. The discovery was made during excavations for a new biomedicine and biodiversity research centre and lies five metres below sea level.

The vessel was located just nine feet beneath the water’s surface, submerged off a breakwater in Lake Michigan and hidden under sand until storms this winter exposed it. The tugboat was decommissioned, stripped of valuable components, intentionally burned and sunk in 1923. 

At the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in France, 11 countries announced the first political commitment focused on protecting coral reefs most likely to endure the impacts of climate change. This initiative aims to prioritise reefs with the highest chance of long-term survival as critical ecosystems for biodiversity and human communities.

A remarkably preserved 16th-century merchant vessel has been discovered lying at a record-breaking depth of 2,567 metres beneath the Mediterranean surface.

At the UN Ocean Conference in June, Tanzania announced the creation of two new marine protected areas (MPAs) near Pemba Island, covering more than 1,300 km² of ecologically rich waters. The North-East Pemba Conservation Area spans 837 km², while the South-East Pemba Conservation Area covers 468 km². Together, they form a vital refuge for coral reefs, seagrass meadows, mangrove forests, and several threatened shark and ray species.

Landmark Move to Safeguard Fragile Ecosystems

Each year, like clockwork, the great whales set out on journeys that boggle the imagination. Humpbacks swim from polar feeding grounds to tropical breeding lagoons and back again, a round trip that can span over 16,000 kilometres. Grey whales hug the coasts from Alaska to Mexico. Blue whales—the largest creatures ever to live—glide across entire oceans, navigating waters with no visible roads, no signposts and no GPS. Yet somehow, they never seem to get lost.

No secrets are more haunting than the wrecks of the ships lying hidden beneath that shining surface. Scattered across the seafloor are the remains of thousands of ships, some torn apart by storms, others claimed by war, piracy or sheer bad luck. And in the eternal silence of the deep, these wrecks take on an eerie life of their own.

Imagine diving into pitch-black waters, thousands of feet below the surface—and then seeing lights—a myriad of moving lights from the strangest creatures you have ever seen. Flickers, glows, pulses of eerie blue and green. Like stars scattered in the deep sea. Welcome to the world of bioluminescence, nature’s living light show.

Beneath the surface of the western Pacific Ocean lies a place so deep, dark and mysterious that it might as well be another planet. The Mariana Trench—a crescent-shaped scar in the Earth’s crust—is the deepest part of our oceans and home to a world few have ever seen.

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have captured unprecedented high-resolution images of USS F-1, a US Navy submarine that sank during World War I.

Australian researchers have discovered the likely location of a Dutch ship that sank off the coast of Australia over 150 years ago, just days after discharging more than 400 Chinese miners at Robe, who then walked to Victoria's Goldfields.