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Return from the Deep

April 15, 2014

Ben Pietro (far left) and Brian Hogue (far right) of the Sub-Surface Mooring Operations group, along with members of the R/V Atlantis crew, recover a Vector Averaging Current Meter (VACM) during a 2010 expedition led by WHOI physical oceanographer John Toole. During the cruise, researchers checked a variety of moored instruments deployed along Line W, which runs from south of Woods Hole to Bermuda. Data from the instruments has revealed much about important currents that flow near the edge of the continental shelf. The VACM, a workhorse of deep ocean current measurement since the late 1960s, is being phased out as new technology becomes available.(Photo by John Toole, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)