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Ready for a Big Splash

January 23, 2018

John Kemp, head of the WHOI Mooring Operations & Engineering Group, directs the deployment of a surface mooring from the research vessel Neil Armstrong. Common moorings, which use anchors and cables or ropes to secure boats, channel markers, and other floating objects in fixed places are familiar sites in our local waterways. Oceanographic moorings work in the same way, but the lines can be thousands of meters long and the top float may not be visible at the surface. Scientific instruments can be attached to the mooring line, mounted on a surface buoy, or made to climb up and down the underwater line. (Photo by Amy Kukulya, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)