[1] The circulation of the Ross Sea is dominated by a wind-driven ocean gyre and the flow is strongly influenced by three submarine ridges that run from southwest to northeast.

The southernmost part of the Ross Sea is Gould Coast, which is approximately 200 miles (320 km) from the geographic South Pole.

[8] This over-deepened condition is due to cycles of erosion and deposition of sediments from expanding and contracting ice sheets overriding the shelf during Oligocene and later time,[9] and is also found on other locations around Antarctica.

[9][11] Seismic studies in the latter half of the twentieth century defined the major features of the geology of the Ross Sea.

[12] The deepest or basement rocks, are faulted into four major north trending graben systems, which are basins for sedimentary fill.

The majority of the faulting and accompanying graben formation along with crustal extension occurred during the rifting away of the Zealandia microcontinent from Antarctica in Gondwana during Cretaceous time.

The Ross Sea-wide major unconformity RSU-6 has been proposed to mark a global climate event and the first appearance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Oligocene.

[22][23][24] During 2018, Expedition 374 of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), the latest successor to the DSDP, drilled additional holes (U1521–1525) in the central Ross Sea for determining Neogene and Quaternary ice sheet history.

[26] In both these locations the metamorphic rocks are mylonites deformed in the Cretaceous suggesting extreme stretching of the Ross Embayment during that time.

Scattered through the Ford Ranges and Fosdick Mountains are late Cenozoic volcanic rocks that are not found to the west on Edward VII Peninsula.

The rocks are of upper Precambrian to lower Paleozoic in age, deformed in many places during the Ross Orogeny in the Cambrian.

Beacon rocks are reported to have been recovered in the drill cores of the Cape Roberts Project at the western edge of the Ross Sea.

CDW transport onto the shelf is known to be persistent and periodic, and is thought to occur at specific locations influenced by bottom topography.

The Ross Sea is regarded by marine biologists as having a very high biological diversity and as such has a long history of human exploration and scientific research, with some datasets going back over 150 years.

[47][48][49][50][51] In 2010, the Ross Sea Antarctic toothfish fishery was independently certified by the Marine Stewardship Council,[52] and has been rated as a 'Good Alternative' by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program[citation needed].

However, a 2008 document submitted to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) reported significant declines in toothfish populations of McMurdo Sound coinciding with the development of the industrial toothfishing industry since 1996, and other reports have noted a coincident decrease in the number of orcas.

[54] In the southern winter of 2017 New Zealand scientists discovered the breeding ground of the Antarctic toothfish in the northern Ross Sea seamounts for the first time[55] underscoring how little is known about the species.

On 28 October 2016, at its annual meeting in Hobart, a Ross Sea marine park was declared by the CCAMLR, under an agreement signed by 24 countries and the European Union.

However, a sunset provision of 35 years was part of negotiations, which means it does not meet the International Union for Conservation of Nature definition of a marine protected area, which requires it to be permanent.

[57] In July 2013, the CCAMLR held a meeting in Bremerhaven in Germany, to decide whether to turn the Ross Sea into an MPA.

The deal failed due to Russia voting against it, citing uncertainty about whether the commission had the authority to establish a marine protected area.