Feature
Mining the Origins of Life
New System to Take Long Seafloor Cores Is Ready to Go
Over five years, engineers had designed, built, and tested components for a new, one-of-a-kind system to extend the length of sediment samples cored from the sea floor. In September, they…
Read MoreSome Things New Under the Sea
New microbe species discovered In the quest to explore the remarkable diversity of microbial life on Earth, a German-American team of scientists has discovered seafloor bacteria that can “eat” natural…
Read MoreThe Sound of Sonar and the Fury about Whale Strandings
Eight years ago, several U.S. Navy destroyers used sonar in the Bahamas during routine training exercises. Within 36 hours, 17 animals—including 14 beaked whales, one of the world’s deepest-diving whale…
Read MoreScientists Investigate Mysterious Duck Die-offs
Andrea Bogomolni was in a skiff near shore when she saw the ducks in October of 2007: “It was surreal,” the biologist remembered. “You could see hundreds of lifeless brown,…
Read MoreTo Fertilize, or Not to Fertilize
Global warming is “unequivocal,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in November 2007. Human actions—particularly the burning of fossil fuels—have dramatically raised carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases…
Read MoreLost City Pumps Life-essential Chemicals at Rates Unseen at Typical Black Smokers
Hydrocarbons—molecules critical to life—are routinely generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean, according to research led…
Read MoreWHOI Ship Hunts for Revolutionary War Wreck
One of the fiercest battles of the Revolutionary War raged off the coast of Flamborough Head, England, on Sept. 23, 1779, pitting the American ship Bonhomme Richard against the British…
Read MoreMelting Ice Threatens Polar Bears’ Survival
The Department of Interior’s imminent decision on whether to place polar bears on the federally protected endangered species list has focused attention on a recent study that documents for the…
Read MoreProposals Emerge to Transfer Excess Carbon into the Ocean
It’s sort of the planetary equivalent of moving clutter accumulating in the attic to other storage space in the basement: transferring excess heat-trapping carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere into the…
Read MoreDumping Iron and Trading Carbon
Debating the idea of fertilizing the ocean with iron can feel a little like riding a seesaw. On the up side is iron’s eye-catching potential to set off enormous plankton…
Read MoreLessons from Nature, Models, and the Past
The first part of biogeochemist John Martin’s famous prediction—“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age”—has been proved partly right: Iron is the only…
Read MoreWhat Are the Possible Side Effects?
Most of the ocean food chain is too small to see, but that doesn’t mean the effects of iron fertilization will be, too. “The purpose, if one is going to…
Read MoreWill Ocean Iron Fertilization Work?
In this age of satellites, it’s fairly easy to answer the basic question of whether adding iron to the ocean can stimulate a plankton bloom. When storms over land blow…
Read MoreStranded Marine Mammals Stir Tough Decisions
A seal, sick or injured, is found stranded on a beach. What should be done? That depends on whom you ask. An animal welfare advocate would urge efforts to help…
Read MoreRobot Paints Stunning Map of Deep-sea Volcano
Painting with sonar, each brushstroke a “ping” of sound reflected off the seafloor, the robotic underwater vehicle called ABE created a masterpiece of a landscape—one that is submerged about a…
Read MoreGoing for the GUSTO (Mooring)
It was the oceanographic equivalent of stopping for milk on the way home. Two years ago, Mike McCartney had left a mooring in the Gulf Stream, rigged with sensors to…
Read MoreOceanInsights for the Blind
WHOI physical oceanographer Amy Bower brought along a few extraordinary passengers when she set out to the Labrador Sea aboard the research vessel Knorr in September: Kate Fraser, a science…
Read MoreSubmerged Autonomous Launch Platforms
Amy Bower wanted to investigate an elusive and unpredictable phenomenon in a remote ocean. Off the west coast of Greenland, large, spinning rings of warm water, called eddies, occasionally form…
Read MorePlumbing the Plume That Created Samoa
Matthew Jackson began his journey to the center of the Earth on lonely gravel roads in Montana. Uninterested in motorcycles and horses, and miles from neighbors and friends, Jackson roamed…
Read MorePublication Schedule
Volume 49 No. 1 — December 2011 No. 2 — May 2012 No. 3 — October 2012 Volume 50 No. 1 March 2013 No. 2 October 20123
Read MoreFertilizing the Ocean with Iron
“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age” may rank as the catchiest line ever uttered by a biogeochemist. The man responsible was…
Read MoreCoral Catastrophe on the Corner Rise Seamounts
A research team has found that deep-sea coral communities that provide lush habitats for fish and other marine life were extensively damaged, mostly likely by deep-sea fishing trawlers, atop two…
Read MoreWill the Ocean Circulation Be Unbroken?
If the world’s climate is going to change, we will see signs in the ocean. The atmosphere and oceans are intricately linked; nowhere is that better demonstrated than in the…
Read More