Multimedia

Plate Movements

March 5, 2024

Earth’s surface is always on the move! Learn how sliding, colliding, and sinking tectonic plates create mountains, volcanoes, trenches, and quakes.

Plate Boundaries

From earthquakes to hydrothermal vents, see how Earth’s restless plates shape the planet. Click to explore boundaries, fault zones, and seafloor features.

Ocean Twilight Zone: The Human Connection

From food to climate to creativity, the twilight zone plays a surprising role in our lives—showing just how connected we are to the mysterious deep sea.

Ocean Twilight Zone: Migration

Every night, billions of deep-sea creatures rise to the surface to feed—then vanish by dawn. It’s Earth’s largest daily migration, hidden in plain sight.

Ocean Twilight Zone: Carbon

From photosynthesizing plankton to poop-powered carbon sinks, discover how ocean life and physics help regulate Earth’s climate.

Twilight Zone Technology

Studying the twilight zone is tough—it’s dark, cold, and deep. Explore how scientists use custom tools and robots to explore and uncover its hidden life and secrets.

Life in the Twilight Zone

Dive into the twilight zone to explore extraordinary adaptations and the food web that powers this mysterious mid-ocean ecosystem.

Twilight Zone Basics

The ocean’s twilight zone lies 2001,000 meters deep—cold, dark, and vast. Learn about one of Earth’s largest habitats and a key frontier for ocean science in this interactive.

Fast-Spreading Mid-Ocean Ridge

Faster spreading ridges like the East Pacific Rise behave like hot taffy, with more magma and eruptions making the crust spread more fluidly.

Slow-Spreading Mid-Ocean Ridge

Dive into the dynamic geology of mid-ocean ridges—explore lava flows, fault scarps, magma chambers, and more by clicking on each seafloor feature.

Mid-Ocean Ridges: Axial Ridge

Explore the dynamic landscape of mid-ocean ridges—from pillow lavas and lava pillars to deep-sea creatures thriving in this volcanic underwater frontier.

Tubeworm Anatomy

March 4, 2024

Explore tubeworm anatomy and discover how these deep-sea creatures survive through a unique symbiotic relationship with bacteria. Click to learn more.

Photosynthesis vs. Chemosynthesis

Plants use sunlight to make food. Microbes near deep-sea vents use chemicals instead. Compare how life gets energy when the sun doesn’t shine.

Hydrothermal Vent Life

Discover the extraordinary creatures living at hydrothermal vents—from giant tubeworms to glowing shrimp—each adapted to thrive in extreme deep-sea heat.

Vents Around the World

Explore global hydrothermal vents—from mid-ocean ridges to arc volcanoes—and see how confirmed and inferred vents are worldwide.

Vent Boiling Points

Water boils at different temperatures depending on depth. Click the markers to see how pressure affects boiling points as you descend into the deep ocean.

Vent Chemistry

Hot fluids from vents mix with seawater, cycling metals like copper and zinc, fueling unique chemical reactions and chemosynthetic life deep in the ocean.

Hydrothermal Vent Basics

Discover how hydrothermal vents form, what they release, and why these extreme environments are hotspots for ocean chemistry and deep-sea life.

History of the Earth

Travel back in time through 4.8 billion years of Earth’s history—from the birth of the planet to the rise of life, mass extinctions, and human evolution.

Earth’s Anatomy

In this interactive, learn about Earth’s layers, what the Earth is made of, and the thickness of the different layers.

Temperature, Density and Salinity

Discover how temperature and salinity shape ocean density—and how even tiny differences help drive the powerful flow of deep ocean currents.

Betty Bunce on To Tell The TRUTH (1960s CBS)

February 27, 2024

Enjoy this throwback segment from the 1960s game show To Tell The Truth featuring WHOI Scientist Emeritus and a woman pioneer in oceanography, Elizabeth “Betty” Bunce.

Ocean Encounters: Seabirds

February 14, 2024

Seabirds thrive far from shore, soaring thousands of miles over open ocean—but their oceanic lifestyle also makes them vulnerable to growing environmental threats.