Coasts & Shallow Water | Smithsonian Ocean

Rock on the ocean coast covered with green algae.

two mangrove trees in the crashing waves

Mangroves Overview

Are you a student researching mangroves or someone looking to learn more about mangrove forests? This overview dives into everything to know.

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Featured Content

Seagrasses are flowering plants that can form dense underwater meadows and are an important shallow water habitat.

Overview

Seagrass and Seagrass Beds

Horizontal bands of color represent different species of lichen that have adapted to the conditions at different heights above sea level.

Article

Seaside Lichens

The grasses and animals living in marshes help to filter water and stabilize shorelines, along with providing habitat for a variety of mammals, fish, shellfish and amphibians and a haven for migratory waterfowl.

Article

How Hurricanes Shape Wetlands in Southern Louisiana

Rough periwinkles sit on a bed of barnacles.

Article

Spirals in Time: A Walk at the Seashore

With their brown and yellow markings, seaside sparrows (Ammodramus maritimus) blend in well with marshgrass.

Article

Beyond the Sea: How Oil Spills in the Ocean Affect Birds On Land

Are You An Educator?

At Smithsonian Ocean, we have lesson plans, activities, and resources to help you engage your students in the wonders of our oceans.

see all lesson plans Lesson Plan: Secrets of the Sediments

Coasts & Shallow Water Articles

Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica) is a slow-growing and long-lived seagrass native to the Mediterranean.

Article

Bugs and Slugs: The Hidden Secret to Healthy Seagrasses

This male dancing fiddler crab (Uca terpsichores) has built a sand “hood” at the entrance to his burrow, which he hopes will attract females to his humble abode—as if that big beautiful claw of his weren't enough!

Article

The Design of a Beautiful Weapon

Welcome to the mangrove forest, where the daily rhythm of the tides sets the pace. These coastal wetlands create a sanctuary for an extraordinary range of creatures, three-fourths of all tropical fish are born here and countless reptiles and birds cal

Video

Inside the Mangrove Forest

Microscopic beach dweller in the sand.

Video

Organisms Beneath the Sand

A ribbon worm curled up in a mud flat.

Article

The Search for an Elusive Ribbon Worm

two mangrove trees in the crashing waves

Overview

Mangroves

two scientists hammering a sediment core

Video

Oil and Water Don't Mix, Even After 40 Years

Plastic bottles and other marine debris cover a rocky beach in Curacao.

Article

Fighting Plastic From Every Angle

Screenshot from "Climate Change and the Chesapeake Bay" of students wearing life jackets on a boat.

Video

Climate Change and the Chesapeake Bay

A screenshot from the video showing a volunteer talking about mangrove restoration.

Video

Miami Connects Art and Mangrove Restoration

A Kemp's Ridley sea turtle is returned to the ocean.

Article

Images: Conserving Endangered Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles

A screenshot from the video showing illustration of penguins on ice.

Video

Penguins: Popularity, Peril and Poop