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| | 1. William McLean, mate on the Sea Education Association's SSV Corwith Cramer, teaches MIT-WHOI Joint Program (JP) students celestial navigation using a sextant during the annual Jake Peirson Summer Cruise. Every year, admitted students are welcomed to the program with a 10-day cruise in the North Atlantic, on which they gain practical experience in oceanographic research as they investigate biological, chemical, physical and geological characteristics of the marine environment. Popular Science recently named WHOI one of the Top 25 "Most Awesome College Labs." (Photo By Donglai Gong, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 2. Postdoctoral scholar Peter van Hengstum of the Coastal Systems Group prepares to deploy sediment traps in Oyster Pond near WHOI's Quissett Campus. A group of researchers and students, led by Jeff Donnelly, recently mobilized in advance of the approaching Hurricane Irene to install instruments and make measurements along the shoreline to monitor any changes caused by high winds and rough seas. The data should help researchers refine their understanding of the way in which large storms appear in such historical records as sediment cores. (Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 3. Students in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography learn how to deploy and operate a rosette sampler during the 2011 Jake Pierson Summer Cruise. The device is a mainstay of oceanographic research, one that can take multiple water samples at various depths and carry other instruments, such as a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) profiler, to simultaneously measure water properties beneath the surface. The 10-day cruise in the North Atlantic serves as an introduction for new graduate students to the world of ship-board oceanography and is named in memory the former WHOI staff member who played a crucial role in the formation of the Joint Program. (Photo by Donglai Gong, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 4. To really understand the cycle of life in the deep sea, researchers need samples to measure chemistry and DNA. And they aren’t after just any samples; the ones with the most to offer are likely to come from the extreme, such as a submarine volcanic eruption. Assistant scientist John "Chip" Breier, Summer Student Fellow Kevin Mori and the rest of the team are developing a new sampling tool that will allow scientists to use AUVs like Sentry to find and sample geochemical and microbial “hotspots” in response to tectonic and volcanic events. Such events can induce major changes in deep sea chemistry and potentially provide a major pulse of energy to a variety of micro-organisms. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 5. Sophia Merrifield, a student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, prepares to deploy a surface drifter with the help of WHOI physical oceanographer Dave Fratantoni about 20 miles off the tip of Cape Cod. As it drifts, the instrument reports its position via satellite, which tells scientists about the speed and direction of surface flows. In this experiment, done in collaboration with James Manning of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the researchers used many kinds of instruments to study water movements that affect the distribution of copepods, small crustaceans that are the major food source for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. (Photo by Nick Woods, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 6. Nick Woods and Sophia Merrifield, students in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography, prepare to deploy a profiling float equipped with acoustic sensors that “listen” for whales and a suite of instruments that measure physical characteristics of the marine environment. The area they were working in, about 20 miles off Race Point at the tip of Cape Cod, is a rich feeding ground for whales, including endangered North Atlantic right whales. (Photo by Dave Fratantoni, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 7. A group of graduate students in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program gather on the deck of the (SSV) Corwith Cramer alongside the ship's crew for the start of the 2011 Jake Peirson Summer Cruise. Beginning students are welcomed to the world of oceanography with a 10-day cruise in the North Atlantic aboard one of the sailing vessels operated by Sea Education Association. The cruise, which gives students an opportunity to develop their skills in ocean sampling and sea-faring, is named in honor of Jake Peirson, who worked at WHOI from 1967 to 1996, serving as Assistant Dean and Associate Dean/Registrar. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 8. Joel Llopiz, a postdoctoral scholar in the WHOI Biology Department, studies how ocean food webs may differ at different latitudes. Working with fish ecologist Simon Thorrold, Llopiz analyzes isotopes in the amino acids of larval fish, for clues to their prey and feeding patterns. Here he selects fish larvae collected from the tropical Straits of Florida and from cooler, higher latitudes of Georges Bank to compare feeding behavior and nutrition in the two regions. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 9. Graduating MIT/WHOI Joint Program student Abby Heithoff (center) received the Panteleyev Award from Associate Dean Meg Tivey and Dean Jim Yoder at the 2011 Joint Program Graduate Reception in June. The George "Gera" Pavlovich Panteleyev Award is presented each year to a graduating student who has best exemplified the commitment to enhancing graduate student life. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 10. WHOI Postdoctoral Scholar Kakani Katija studies the power sources that propel water movement in oceans. Katija’s evidence in biogenic ocean mixing shows that the movements of sea creatures could have as powerful an effect on ocean currents as that of the winds and tides. “The creatures in our seas could be as important to ocean circulation and global climate as the winds and tides,” said Katija, who has identified a mechanism that would allow swimming animals to mix water when they swim. Now she plans to test that mechanism, first with multiple animals in a controlled lab environment and then in the open ocean. In recognition of her work, National Geographic has her named one of 14 National Geographic Emerging Explorers for 2011. National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers Program recognizes and supports uniquely gifted and inspiring adventurers, scientists and storytellers making a significant contribution to world knowledge through exploration while still early in their careers. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 11. This spring, first-year MIT/WHOI Joint Program students enrolled in an introductory course in biological oceanography had the opportunity to participate in a field exercise on R/V Tioga. During the cruise, students gained first-hand experience in sampling and identifying organisms that live in the ocean or beneath the seafloor. Here, first-year students (left to right) Esther Shyu, Emily Brownlee, Kathleen Pitz examine the remains of a tube from a tube-building worm brought up by a grab sampler moments before. The worms' burrows help bring aerated water into bottom sediments and provide microhabitats for other small invertebrates and microbes. (Photo by Maya Yamato, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 12. What do you take if you're planning for 100 days camped at the foot of a glacier? A Kindle full of books, a guitar, and, if you're lucky, a very complex puzzle. The first two, MIT/WHOI Joint Program student Benjamin Linhoff made sure to pack. The last, he expects to find waiting for him at the terminus of the Leverett Glacier in western Greenland. Linhoff will be spending the next three months collecting samples of meltwater from lakes on top of the glacier and pouring from the base. He hopes to use these to untangle the complex and largely invisible processes that occur inside the glacier and that might be contributing to recent increases in the flow of ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet to the surrounding ocean. Readers can keep up with his experiences on his blog, Following the Ice. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 13. Observed by postdoctoral scholar Shawn Arellano (back left), Joint Program students Oscar Sosa and Jeanette Wheeler watch as fellow student Sara Bosshart adds fluorescein dye to WHOI’s racetrack flume to visualize how flowing water moves around a rock on the bottom. Currents near the seafloor influence dispersal of invertebrate larvae, distribution of food particles, and ability of suspension-feeders to capture those particles. The dye exercise was part of a unit on “Life in Boundary-Layer Flow” in the Biological Oceanography course taught by biologists Lauren Mullineaux (in red shirt) and Sam Laney. The students also used a Laser Doppler Anemometer to measure flow speeds and observed particle transport over and deposition onto a rough ‘seafloor.’ (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 14. What seems like a fractal landscape of mountains and canyons is actually a "corrugated coral," a reef-building species with a hard skeleton, photographed under a microscope. Pockets of tiny white threads on the coral, which is feeding on tiny swimming animals, are digestive, "mesenterial," filaments the coral polyps extrude to snare and digest prey. The coral was collected in Panama during the MIT-WHOI Joint Program's January, 2011 Field Course in Tropical Marine Ecology at the Liquid Jungle Lab, taught by WHOI biologists Jesús Pineda and Ann Tarrant. (Photo by Liz Drenkard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 15. Alyson Santoro, a WHOI postdoctoral investigator in the department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, checks on cultures of marine ammonia-oxidizing bacteria. The bacteria are used by Santoro and Joint Program student Carly Buchwald in experiments to study their isotope effects (differences in mass), important values for interpreting nitrogen and oxygen stable isotope measurements in the ocean. Santoro is on a research cruise in the southern Pacific Ocean from mid-March through April, during which she will be investigating a missing part of the global nitrogen cycle. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 16. Jessica Benthuysen, a recent graduate of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, developed a sophisticated mathematical model of upwelling, the vertical motion of water that occurs in certain parts of the ocean. Upwelling often brings nutrient-rich deep waters closer to the surface, providing a bonanza for phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, and whales. Benthuysen’s model showed that just a few key factors, including bottom slope and along-shore current, can account for upwelling in an area off the U.S. East Coast called the shelf break, where the nearly-flat continental shelf meets the steep continental slope. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 17. MIT/WHOI Joint Program student Louie Wurch carries tubes containing cultures of Aureococcus anophagefferens, which has been responsible for brown tides along heavily populated coastlines of the eastern U.S. and South Africa. In the first genome sequencing of a harmful algal bloom species, researchers found that Aureococcus’ unique gene complement allows it to outcompete other marine phytoplankton and thrive in human-modified ecosystems, which could help explain the global increases in harmful algal blooms. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | Last updated: July 6, 2012 |
