But while lifeless during that time, the planet was already covered by vast oceans dotted with hydrothermal vent systems that released large amounts of ferrous iron into the water. The earliest ...

A new study suggests that the Earth’s oceans may have changed color over time and could change again in the future, depending ...

This research investigates the historical alongside current and projected ocean color changes of Earth based on recent scientific findings. The Earth maintained green oceans for billions of years ...

The changes in ocean chemistry were gradual. The Archaean period lasted 1.5 billion years. This is more than half of Earth’s ...

and future changes could shift ocean colors again. Earth is known as the “blue planet,” but a new study published in Nature suggests that our oceans may have once looked green instead of blue.

Melting polar ice narrows the light spectrum underwater, favoring blue-tuned algae and disrupting the ocean food web.

in the ocean’s uppermost layer. It appears green because phytoplankton “contain the pigment chlorophyll that absorbs blue and red light,” says Robbins. What’s more, over the past 20 years ...