Image Galleries

Public Event: Pioneering New Ocean Science Frontiers

Saturday, September 17, 2011 • The New Bedford Whaling Museum

Featured Photos

Photos highlighting the implementation of the coastal and global nodes.

Schematics

Artist's conceptions of the global and coastal nodes and their components.

West Coast Inshore Mooring Test

March 19-20, 2011—The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) program conducted the first step in testing surface moorings in the ocean off the coast of Oregon and Washington.

Video

At Sea Test 2 Deployments

September 22, 2011—R/V Oceanus departed the WHOI dock, its deck chock-a-block full of equipment for a five-day expedition to deploy three moorings on the continental slope south of Cape Cod. The mooring deployment marks the first comprehensive test of an Ocean Observatories Initiative system on the East Coast.
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EOM Test Buoy Deployment

January, 2010—The Electro-Optical-Mechanical (EOM) test buoy was deployed in on a mooring in 152 meters of water on the continental shelf break south of Woods Hole. The test mooring was designed to evaluate the performance of EOM stretch hoses and the first application of a high speed satellite telemetry system, the Inmarsat based FleetBroadband 250, on a small moored platform.
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News Conference Announcing Contract for WHOI to help Build Ocean Observing System
Highlights of the August 23, 2007 News Conference in Woods Hole where it was announced that WHOI will receive 97 million to help build an ocean observing system.
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Animation

A Shelfbreak Observatory for Coastal Oceanography

Dr. Glen Gawarkiewicz explains how new robotic underwater vehicles and ocean observatories can revolutionize our understanding of the coastal ocean.
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Pioneer Array

This artist's conception represents the coastal "pioneer array." The first installation of this moveable array will occur along the "continental shelf-break" off the coast of southern New England, the boundary where coastal waters meet the open ocean. It is a dynamic intersection where ocean currents meet in weather-like "fronts," and where the nutrients, pollutants, minerals, creatures, and waters of the coast are exchanged with the deep ocean.
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How Does an Observatory Work?

When magma rises through Earth's crust to a mid-ocean ridge, ocean observatory sensors detect the ground motion, the spilling lava, and the chemicals spewing from hydrothermal vents. Observations are relayed via satellite back to shore-based researchers, who can command their instruments and a robotic vehicle to make specialized measurements, and then muster an expedition to inspect the eruption firsthand with submersibles or other undersea vehicles.
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