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| | 1. Undergraduate Andrew Delman (Yale University), scientist
Andrew Ashton (blue cap, WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department) and Guest Student Nick Magliocca (red cap, Duke University) trek through the sand in the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve
on Cape Cod, Mass. in July, 2008. Using Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR)
they searched for below-the-surface deposits left by past storms, to
investigate how barrier beaches respond to changes in storminess and
sea level. As a WHOI Summer Student Fellow, Delman spent the summer collecting and analyzing data and developing a model of long-term barrier-beach evolution.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 2. WHOI geologist Alison Shaw tightens the screws on a mount of small olivine crystals that she has prepared for examination in the Northeast National Ion Microprobe Facility on WHOI's Quissett Campus. Shaw is looking into the chemical composition of tiny melt inclusions—trace elements formed by volcanic processes—within the crystals. The
computer screen in the background shows a schematic of the ion probe's
valves, pumps, and gauges.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 3.
WHOI researchers prepare to make a light detection and
ranging (LIDAR)
survey of an old shipwreck that washed up on the Cape Cod National Seashore in
Wellfleet, Mass. in March 2008 Geologist Adam Soule
(second from left) fixes the position of the LIDAR with a global positioning
system locator while engineer Craig Johnson (far left)
and geologists Rob
Evans and Dan
Fornari (far right) look on. Soule doesn't usually study shipwrecks, but he
took advantage of the opportunity to test and demonstrate the new gear for his
colleagues and to collect
three-dimensional images of the ghost ship for local archaeologists.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 4. In a WHOI laboratory, geophysicist Rob
Reves-Sohn (left), geologist Adam Soule,
and graduate student Claire
Willis analyze samples of seafloor deposits brought back from the Gakkel
Ridge. Those deposits have provided evidence that explosive
volcanic eruptions have occurred deep beneath the ice-covered surface of
the Arctic Ocean.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 5.
Senior research assistant Ellen
Roosen (white hard hat) puts a pin in a box corer in preparation for
deployment over the side of the research vessel Oceanus in June 2008.
Researchers collected sediments from the floor of the western North
Atlantic in order to collect living benthic foraminifera
(amoeba-like microbes) for culturing and studies of shell
chemistry and how it is affected by temperature and
elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. From foreground to
background stand: ship's bosun Clindor Cacho; Roosen; MIT/WHOI student Fern Gibbons, summer student fellow Zack
Bailey; and marine chemist Dan
McCorkle (obscured by the corer).
(Photo by Alexander Dorsk, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 6.
In the summer of 2008, geologist Mark Behn
drilled 8 feet down into Greenland's
ice sheet and left seismometers at the bottom of the holes to record ice
cracking and movement. Researchers will retrieve the instruments next year
to see what happened on the ice (how it has melted and shifted) in previous
months, in an effort to learn more about melting on the ice sheet (the world's
second largest, after Antarctica).
(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 7.
In July 2008, researchers from WHOI and the
University of Washington spread a harmless
red dye into the meltwater on top of the Greenland
ice sheet. The team was able to examine the flow at the surface and down into a
moulin—a massive vertical tunnel through the ice, stretching to the bottom of
the glacier. But more importantly, the team was trying to track how long it
would take before the dyed water would
flow through and beneath the ice in the interior of Greenland
and out into coastal waters (40 kilometers away).
(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 8.
New skeleton made by a two-week old baby Porites
"porous" coral reared in an experimental aquarium at the Bermuda Institute for Ocean
Sciences looks like a miniature Christmas tree. The young coral's
individual skeleton is about 1.5mm (0.06 inch) diameter. WHOI Research
Associate Kathryn Rose meticulously removes the corallite for morphometric and
chemical analyses, to understand the effects of sea water saturation state on
coral growth. The ongoing experiment is part of a collaborative study by WHOI
scientists Anne Cohen and Dan
McCorkle, and BIOS scientist Sam du Putron to assess the effects of ocean
acidification as a result of rising levels of carbon dioxide in Earth's
atmosphere on the health of new coral recruits.
(Photo by Kathryn Rose, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 9.
From
a helicopter, deep meltwater channels on Greenland's
massive ice sheet become visible. Lakes form on the ice each summer as the sun
returns. As lakes fill, the channels overflow and become hidden from view when
standing on land. Only through an aerial
survey can you see features like this in detail. By coordinating GPS positions
with digital photographs, researchers can precisely map the locations of these
lakes, which they are studying to learn about climate change. They also compare
their observations with satellite images.
(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | Last updated: July 23, 2009 |
