Deep below the chilly saltwater of the Bering Sea, strings of small holes dot the seafloor. The mysterious dots are scattered across the ground, decorations that look both natural and strange.

P. Stabeno et al. Distributed Biological Observatory region 1: Physics, chemistry and plankton in the northern Bering Sea. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography.

Deep sediment cores retrieved from the Bering Sea floor indicate that the region was ice-free all year and biological productivity was high during the last major warm period in Earth's climate ...

The Bering Sea changes brought about by the lack of winter ice represent “the ecosystem of the future,” said Phyllis Stabeno, ... would sink and eventually form a frigid layer down deep.

As Bering Sea ice melts, Alaskans, ... In Savoonga, the ice often held fast to the island shore deep into May, and the Yu'pik hunters used it to good advantage.

Sea ice historically has created a Bering Sea “cold pool,” an east-west barrier of extremely cold, salty water at the bottom of the wide, shallow continental shelf.

The killer whale was caught in June in a deep area of the Bering Sea where five bottom trawl vessels pursued a mix of flatfish such as Greenland turbot and black cod.