Researchers observe the mass distribution of the oceans. World-wide ocean water varies seasonally with a sea level variation of approx. seven to eight millimetres.

It would seem to be self-evident to use the adjective ‘salty’ in connection with the World’s oceans. Everybody knows that the oceans are salty. It is perhaps the first thing that comes to mind when we think of the oceans.

Water is obviously important as a basic necessity for maintaining life. Quite simply, if you don’t regularly take in water you can die within a few days.

We have previously looked at the various properties of water which have an effect on aquatic fauna, some of them a bit out of the ordinary, such as surface tension. However, one of the most important

No! I am not talking about American beer but about ordinary clean water, water that should come out of your tap. From the air, shallow coastal sea-waters above white sands often appear to be blue or green, most of this colouring being due to either reflection from the sky or from organic growths such as chlorophyll containing algae. A glass of tap water, on the other hand, seems to be colourless, yet divers know that water has a definite blue tinge below the surface. Water is, in fact, blue in colour, albeit a very pale blue.

We have written much here in this magazine about the different properties of water. Some of them, such as surface tension, are of importance to the ability of aquatic fauna to function in their given environment. For example, surface tension permits water skaters to skate on the surface of the water where its habitat is neither the water below the surface nor the air above. However, more than a purely physical phenomenon, osmosis is of importance for life itself, for no physical phenomenon has any greater importance in biology than does osmosis. Without osmosis neither animal cells nor plant cells could function. Not only this, osmosis also appears in many different guises in our everyday existence. So, what is this strange phenomenon?

Aquatic animals, like their land-based relatives, can communicate in a number of ways. For example, in one form of communication, organisms can emit and detect certain organic molecules which can fun

It has often been stated that life depends on the anomalous properties of water. More than 40 properties of water appear to be anomalous in some way or other, and among these is its large heat capacity.

A proposed new definition of ‘seawater’ is drawing the attention of the world’s oceanographic community