Multimedia Items

To probe the seafloor, scientists send sound waves down through the ocean and seafloor and record reflected echoes with ocean bottom seismographs and hydrophones trailing behind a ship. The time…

Former WHOI Summer Student Fellow and current MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Benjamin Urann (left) and his mentor, WHOI geologist Henry Dick, examine slabs cut from rocks collected during a…

WHOI engineer Marshall Swartz (right) instructs Louis Clement, a post-doctoral scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, on the technical intricacies of a CTD rosette equipped with a lowered acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP). The two were…

Scientists diving in the submersible Alvin in 1991 found themselves in something that looked like a snowstorm on the bottom of the sea. They had arrived soon after a seafloor…

Summer Student Fellow Benjamin Urann (left) and his mentor, geologist Henry Dick, examine slabs cut from igneous rocks collected during a cruise to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge aboard research vessel Knorr.…

Throughout June 2013, a team of oceanographers and astrobiologists led by WHOI scientist Chris German will explore one of the deepest mid-ocean ridges, the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center beneath the Caribbean…

In 2010, WHOI scientists Adam Soule and Dan Lizarralde searched for evidence that magma from  below the seafloor had penetrated up into the sediments of the Guaymas Basin in the…

Chris Morgan, chief engineer on the research vessel Atlantis, manipulated the remotely operated vehicle Jason at the bottom of the western Caribbean Sea recently while being  guided by members of the…

The Deep Submergence Laboratory’s mission is to further human understanding of the deep-sea floor by developing systems for remote, unmanned exploration.  Here MIT/WHOI Joint Program Student Jordan Stanway tests propellers…

WHOI able-bodied seaman Raul Martinez and SSSG technician Allison Heater prepare the human-occupied vehicle Alvin for a dive in March 2014. They communicate with the sub’s pilot through a sound-powered…

An autonomous underwater vehicle called ABE—for Autonomous Benthic Explorer—systematically “flew” over the seafloor on the volcanic Mid-Atlantic Ridge, midway between Africa and South America, photographing the ocean bottom. Some 3,000…

A pilot inside the submersible Alvin uses one of the vehicle’s manipulator arms to pick up some unusual geological samples: popping rocks. WHOI scientists collected them in 2016, on this…

WHOI geologist Adam Soule looks out of the pilot’s porthole on the human-occupied submersible Alvin during a dive near the mid-Atlantic Ridge in 2016. Soule, who is also the chief scientist for…

Atlantis Bank formed on the seafloor as the Southwest Indian mid-ocean ridge spread apart along a tectonic fault (top). The lower-crust gabbro rock that formed Atlantis Bank was slowly pushed…

Even while conducting research out in the Pacific Ocean, far from family and friends, it’s still Thanksgiving for U.S. scientists and crew members, and they always look for ways to…

WHOI offers students a unique Geodynamics Program that fosters interdisciplinary research among faculty, Joint Program students and postdoctoral fellows. Each year a different theme is the focus of a seminar…