Offshore wind farms are changing sediment flow and carbon storage in the North Sea, with major impacts in the German Bight. Offshore wind energy is central to the European Union’s renewable strategy, with plans to boost North Sea capacity more than tenfold by 2050. New research from Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon shows that expanding wind farms can [...]

A vast ocean current encircling Antarctica—more powerful than all the world’s rivers combined—played a surprisingly complex role in shaping Earth’s climate. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current moves more than 100 times the total water carried by all of Earth’s rivers combined. Flowing continuously around Antarctica without being blocked by land, it plays a central role in [...]

Deep beneath island arcs, new research suggests that gold enrichment originates from repeated, high-degree melting of a hydrous mantle rather than a single process. Far below the ocean floor, Earth’s “gold kitchen” is at work. Volcanic island arcs form above subduction zones, where one oceanic plate sinks beneath another, and these regions are often unusually [...]