Multimedia Items
Underwater Imaging at the East Pacific Rise
HDTV underwater imaging from Alvin at 9°50′ at the East Pacific Rise in 2007. (Tim Shank, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Bill Lange, Advanced Imaging and Visualization Lab)
Originally published online […]
Read MoreDevelopment of Imaging Technologies
Bill Lange, Director of WHOI’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory, discusses how imaging technology has evolved from studying Titanic. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Originally published online August 1, 2010
Read MoreImaging a Hidden World
WHOI biologist Cabell Davis spearheaded the development of this instrument, called a Video Plankton Recorder, to capture images of the ocean’s multitudes of tiny, unseen life forms: Read More
Imaging Titanic
Bill Lange, Director of WHOI’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Originally published online August 1, 2010
Read MoreA tale of two schooners
Following a 1902 collision off the Massachusetts coast, the coal schooners Frank A. Palmer and the Louise B. Crary now exist as one intertwined wreck, captured by here side-scan sonar in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Read MoreThree ships, one ocean twilight zone
In May 2021, members of WHOI’s Ocean Twilight Zone project braved the rough seas of the Northeast Atlantic aboard the Spanish research vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa. Their mission: locate the spring phytoplankton bloom and measure how carbon moves through the mysterious mid-ocean “twilight zone.”
The Sarmiento joined two other research vessels funded by NASA’s EXPORTS program to intensively study the area. This remarkable and rare coordination of 150 scientists from several organizations, and crew on three different ships, was years in the making.
Watch as the WHOI research team, led by Ken Buesseler and Heidi Sosik, deploys innovative new imaging technologies and hauls up hundreds of fascinating specimens from the deep sea. Along the way, you’ll gain an endless appreciation for the vast, weird, and wonderful ocean twilight zone – without getting wet.
Read MoreWelcome home, Alvin!
Alvin is the world’s longest-operating deep-sea submersible. It was launched in 1964 and has made more than 4,700 dives, along the way participating in some of the most iconic discoveries in the deep ocean. Throughout 2011, 2012, and into 2013, Alvin received a comprehensive overhaul and upgrade funded by the National Science Foundation that greatly expanded its capabilities and will eventually put almost the entire ocean floor within its reach.
Read MoreOrpheus explores the ocean’s greatest depths
Orpheus, an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) developed by WHOI, begins its descent into Veatch Canyon on the continental shelf off of the U.S. Northeast during one of several dives from the R/V Neil Armstrong in September 2019.
Read MoreMinion robots in the Ocean Twilight Zone
Phytoplankton use sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, forming the base of the ocean food web. Phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton, which are eaten by other animals. Dead zooplankton and other particles become marine snow drifting in the ocean, but how much marine snow sinks below the sun-lit ocean surface? Scientists are developing a new device
that will follow marine snow into the ocean’s twilight zone.
The MINION is a small (2 Liters) inexpensive instrument. It is equipped with… cameras, seawater sensors, acoustic recorder, ballast weight. Once deployed, MINION will sink to the twilight zone and drift with currents.
Cameras on the side record the rate and quantity of particles falling through the ocean. Falling particles also accumulate on a clear glass panel. A camera on top will record the particle type and accumulation rate.
Similar images have revealed the twilight zone is a perpetual snowstorm, of organic debris. Particles such as this fecal pellet from a jellyfish-like salp are extremely carbon-rich. Pellets like this will sink quickly to deeper waters, or even become buried in the seafloor. Any marine snow that reaches the deep ocean means less carbon in the atmosphere.
The MINION is designed to listen for underwater sound sources. This will determine their location as they drift.
After a MINION has finished its mission, it will release weight and float to the surface. At the surface, it sends a homing signal so it can be recovered. The next generation of MINION will send compressed data-sets via satellite. Allowing them to be deployed by the dozens. Data from MINIONS will help scientists learn more about the ocean’s role in Earth’s climate system.
Read MoreSome Heavy Lifting
WHOI mechanical engineer Kaitlyn Tradd (foreground) directs deck operations on the NOAA research vessel Henry B. Bigelow during a recovery of the towed vehicle Deep-See. Tradd helped to Read More
A New View
This image is of a photogrammetric model of the Rouse Simmons, a schooner that sank on Lake Michigan in 1912 during a violent storm as it was carrying a cargo […]
Read MoreHot Spots on the River
WHOI scientists used a drone equipped with a thermal imaging sensor to create this image (inset) of a section of the Coonamessett River watershed in Falmouth, Mass. The thermal image […]
Read MoreI See a Purple Sea Cucumber
A purple elasipodida holothurian crawls on the seafloor more than 3,000 feet beneath the ocean surface at the base of a seamount off the Galápagos Islands. In August 2015, an […]
Read MoreA New View
A new underwater imaging system developed by WHOI’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory is being tested at submerged shipwreck sites in the U.S. and Europe. The technology enables the rapid […]
Read MoreTaking a Mooring’s Temperature
WHOI engineers don’t usually hang out inside walk-in refrigerators, but research engineer John Reine found himself doing just that. Reine needed to test the efficacy of heaters added onto a […]
Read MoreUniting for the Ocean
The president of the United Nations General Assembly, the Honorable Peter Thomson, recently toured WHOI and met with WHOI officials to discuss the UN Ocean Conference on June 5-9. WHOI […]
Read MoreA Symbiotic Superorganism
WHOI microbiologist Amy Apprill says there’s more to coral reefs than just corals and fish. Reefs also teem with microscopic life—bacteria, archaea, viruses and algae. There are even […]
Read MoreA Star of the Food Web
A diatom chain of the genus Thalassionema is one of thousands of images captured each hour by the Imaging FlowCytobot, an automated, submersible microscope, operating continuously at the Read More
Drama in the Deep
Red-hot magma and a plume of sulfurous fluid spew from the West Mata Volcano on the seafloor 110 miles southwest of Samoa in May 2009. At almost 4,000 feet below […]
Read MoreTarget: Science
WHOI coastal scientist Peter Traykovski sets up a GPS target for a remotely operated aerial vehicle in the North River estuary in Marshfield, Mass., this past September. The drone imaging […]
Read MoreThe Next Mining Frontier?
Hydrothermal vents deep on the seafloor spew chemical-rich fluids that sustain lush communities of deep-sea life. They also form rich deposits of valuable minerals, including metals and rare-earth elements […]
Read MoreSeeing Into the Arizona
WHOI Alvin pilot Mike Skowronski (left) took time off from his “day job” to pilot a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, as […]
Read MoreRobots and Red Tide
Nauset Marsh on Cape Cod occasionally develops harmful algal blooms (HABs) that can shut down shellfishing. To better understand how blooms spread, WHOI biologists Read More
Virtual Ocean
WHOI post-doctoral investigator Tom Chalk manipulates a dataset showing carbonate ion concentration in the 3-dimensional image visualization laboratory. The lab is used to help analyze large, geo-referenced datasets […]
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