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Illustration of a subsea oil seep

About one-half of the oil in the ocean comes from natural oil seeps. Marine chemist and Coastal Ocean Institute Director Chris Reddy studies oil that is naturally seeping into the…

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Ocean Robots: Hydrocarbon Seeps

Places where hydrocarbons naturally seep from the seafloor provide a way to study how oil spills in the ocean change over time. But scientists need vehicles like Sentry, Jason, or…

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Oil in the Ocean

Oil in the Ocean

Each year, thousands of barrels of oil seep out of the ocean floor. On a 2009 cruise aboard the R/V Atlantis, WHOI chemist Christopher Reddy (right) and David Valentine of…

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Oil and Water

Oil and Water

Oil spills aren’t pretty, but this one is perfectly natural. WHOI scientist Chris Reddy and colleagues from the University of California, Santa Barbara, have been studying areas off the Santa…

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Santa Barbara Oil Seeps

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There’s an oil spill every day off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., where oil is seeping naturally from cracks in the seafloor into the ocean. Lighter than seawater, the…

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Searching seeps

Searching seeps

The crew aboard the R/V Atlantis launch the  autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry during a September 2009 cruise to study natural oil and methane seeps at a site about a…

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Following an oily trail

Following an oily trail

Oil and methane bubble to the ocean’s surface from seeps off Coal Oil Point, near Santa Barbara, California. The oil seeps provide a natural “laboratory” for WHOI chemist Chris Reddy…

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Ready to Dive

Ready to Dive

The human-occupied submersible Alvin achieved certification from the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) to dive to depths of 4,500 meters (about 2.8 miles) during tests off the coast of…

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Remote Sensing

Remote Sensing

Marine chemist Chris Reddy recently joined a research cruise off the West Coast virtually via the new telepresence equipment installed in the Coleman and Susan Burke Ocean Observing Operations Room…

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Good day at black rock

Good day at black rock

Blair Paul, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, gently scrapes biological specimens from a chunk of asphalt that had been at the bottom of the Santa…

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Balance onboard

Balance onboard

The Human Occupied Vehicle (HOV) Alvin averages 150-175 dives per year. Here 3rd mate Kami Bucholz (left) and engineering assistant Anton Zafereo balance onboard HOV Alvin during recovery operations. The…

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Pavement for the Seafloor

Pavement for the Seafloor

Heather Coleman, a graduate student from the University of California at Santa Barbara, examines a chunk of natural asphalt retrieved by the Alvin submersible from the Santa Barbara Channel. Natural…

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The Tale of the Arizona

The Tale of the Arizona

This two-dimensional gas chromatogram created by WHOI technician Bob Nelson from samples collected by chemist Chris Reddy tells a very special story. In July 2018, Reddy traveled to Pearl Harbor…

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Summer Sentinel

Summer Sentinel

MIT undergraduate student Zach Duguid spent the summer of 2017 working in a lab run by WHOI scientist Rich Camilli. As a Summer Student Fellow, Duguid focused on an independent…

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Early to Rise

Early to Rise

A team aboard R/V Thomas Thompson made an early-morning, fog-shrouded recovery of an MC-800 multicorer off the coast of San Diego this February on a cruise to give early career scientists an…

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Marine Workhorse

Marine Workhorse

The crew aboard the research vessel Atlantis launched the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry during a September 2009 cruise to study natural oil and methane seeps about one mile off the…

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More autonomy

More autonomy

WHOI’s new deep-diving autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry was launched from the research vessel Atlantis off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., in September 2009 to search for cold seeps—naturally occurring…

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Scoping out seepage

Scoping out seepage

Each year, millions of tons of methane and thousands of barrels of oil seep out of the ocean floor. On a recent cruise aboard the RV Atlantis, Christopher M. Reddy…

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Cooking up marine asphalt

Cooking up marine asphalt

Remnants of natural explosions of oil from the seafloor (asphalt volcanoes) are now being observed. Marine chemist and Coastal Institute director Chris Reddy and Dave Valentine of University of California,…

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