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Dressed for the Deep

January 21, 2012

Each summer, graduate students in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program are welcomed to Woods Hole and to oceanography with the ten-day Jake Peirson Summer Cruise aboard the Sea Education Association ship SSV Corwith Cramer. Students learn how to do research at sea and participate in all aspects of life aboard a sailing vessel, including some seagoing traditions. These seafarers marked the point at which they were farthest offshore and in the deepest waters by dressing in costumes and conducting unorthodox experiments. In one such “study,” students attached an egg to a CTD rosette and lowered it to the ocean floor to see if it would survive. It did, much to their surprise. (Photo by Donglai Gong, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)