Multimedia
Butterflies of the Ocean
These marine snails are also called “sea butterflies” because of their winglike swimming appendages. Masses of pteropods drift with currents in the open ocean, where they provide food for fish…
Read MoreRed Sea Mysteries
The Red Sea has a number of curious characteristics that are not seen in other oceans. It is extremely warm, surface waters often reach over 86° Fahrenheit, and the waters evaporate…
Read MoreTiny Plastics, Big Investigation
Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are embarking on a long-term study of marine microplastics to answer a litany of questions, including how larger plastics break down into tiny…
Read MoreRoots of the Sea
MIT-WHOI Joint Program Ph.D. student Cynthia Becker paddles her kayak into the mangroves of St. John, US Virgin Islands to collect water samples and study the microorganisms residing in mangrove…
Read MoreMilestones for Alvin
The human-occupied submersible Alvin surfaces from a mission to the seafloor circa 1967, three years after the sub was built. Two crewmen assist in the sub’s recovery, as others watch…
Read MoreIn the Nursery
Bluefin tuna are the largest of all tuna species—adults can reach ten feet in length and weigh more than a thousand pounds. But they start out small, as 2- to…
Read MoreBack to Atlantis
Members of a 1947-48 cruise row back to the R/V Atlantis (visible in the background). The primary purpose of the six-month “Med Cruise” was to prepare bathymetric charts of the Agean…
Read MoreA Tale of Three Ships
The WHOI research vessels Crawford, Atlantis, and Gosnold (left to right) were all in Woods Hole, Mass., on this warm day in 1963. The Crawford, a 125-foot Coast Guard cutter acquired…
Read MoreWhat Lies Under the Beach?
A team of international scientists led by Ken Buesseler at WHOI dug pits to sample sand and groundwater at a popular surfing beach in Yotsukura, Japan, for residual radioactivity released…
Read MoreThat is a Spat
All coral colonies start off as a single newly settled polyp, or “spat.” This single polyp grows and divides asexually into thousands of clonal polyps that form a colony. Hanny…
Read MoreSmall Plate
It’s a simple fact of life in the ocean that there are more small marine animals than large ones, but that it’s easier to tag a large animal than a…
Read MoreJust a Little Off the Top
Kirstin Meyer, a postdoctoral scholar at WHOI, holds an underwater note pad near a juvenile Porites lobata coral that she just sampled. You can see the little white area in…
Read MoreEarly Expeditions
Columbus O’Donnell Iselin, director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1940 to 1950 and from 1956 to 1958, watches as scientist Edmund Watson and others depart on a research expedition…
Read MoreFrozen PIES
From left, WHOI mooring technician Meghan Donohue, University of Oregon professor Dave Sutherland, and WHOI scientist Magdalena Andres deploy an instrument known as PIES—a pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounder—in the Sermilik Fjord…
Read MoreA Gobbling Deep-Sea Vehicle
WHOI engineer Justin Fujii had a bit of fun in 2016, dressing up the deep-sea robot Sentry with electrical tape to celebrate a Thanksgiving conducting research at sea. Sentry is…
Read MoreRadioactivity in the Ocean
Crew members on the Japanese research vessel Shinsei Maru deploy a “multi-corer” to collect samples of seafloor sediments just offshore from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. WHOI scientist Ken…
Read MoreScallops Under Threat
Atlantic sea scallops are a $500 million annual industry, but WHOI scientists believe they may be in danger. A new model developed by WHOI researcher Jennie Rheuban suggests that as human-induced climate change…
Read MoreAncient Inlet
WHOI Summer Student Fellow Rachel Gold (Brown University) examines a sediment core from Lake Carmi, Vermont. The sediments provide evidence of an inland sea—formerly known as the Champlain Sea—that flooded…
Read MoreWill oxygen in the ocean continue to decline?
Oxygen loss in the ocean has triggered mass die-offs before—and scientists warn that ongoing deoxygenation may pose a similar threat today.
Read MoreWho is WHOI?
We are scientists, engineers, and technicians pushing the frontiers of ocean research.
Read MoreForecasting Where Ocean Life Thrives
Plankton thrive at ocean fronts, where lighter Atlantic water meets denser Mediterranean water, driving nutrient-rich mixing that fuels surface growth.
Read MoreReassessing Guidelines for Oil Spill Cleanups
Dispersants contain detergents, not unlike those people use to wash dishes, which help break oil into small droplets that can become diluted in the ocean. They also contain an organic…
Read MoreAlbatross Flight Dynamics
Albatrosses extract energy from winds to soar, as seen in these diagrammatic views.
Read MoreGroundwater and the Ocean
Groundwater flows from land to sea, mixing with saltwater underground. Though just 5% of ocean inflow, it can carry high chemical loads that impact coasts.
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