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Meals of the Mighty Mosasaur

Between 100 and 65 million years ago, at the time when dinosaurs reigned on land,...

Article

If You Build An Ocean, Sea Monsters Will Come

Building a productive ocean is complicated. The process is long (on the order of...

video

Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water, Our World

With striking imagery from her book Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water, Our World,...

slideshow

Robotic Ocean Explorer

This is the world’s first unmanned, underwater robot—or “glider”—to cross...

slideshow

A Squalodontid Success

On a beach in Piña, Panama the tide is rolling out. Faint outlines of skeletal...

Photo

Sand from Orient Point, Long Island, New York

There are different types of beaches and multiple factors that influence the...

Photo

NMNH Paleobiology Curator Ian Macintyre

Ian G. Macintyre, Curator of Carbonate Sedimentology, Smithsonian National Museum...

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The Whale Graveyard Whodunit

One of the ocean's tiniest organisms often does the most harm. Microscopic algae...

Personal Perspectives

Whale fossils on the mainland, and into a CT scanner

After a few long days of hard work on the island, we were finally able to excavate...

Personal Perspectives

Dispatches from the Field: Treacherous stream crossings and a new fossil find

We departed from Port Renfrew on Tuesday morning on the Michelle Diana, a boat...

Photo

Arm Bone Fossil of an Ancient Toothed Whale

Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian's National...

Personal Perspectives

Excavating a "toothed" baleen whale from Vancouver Island

The whales that we see in today's world can broadly be split into two groups: those...