Skip to content

Multimedia Items


Natural Oil Seeps

Natural Oil Seeps

This illustration shows the route traveled by oil leaving the subseafloor reservoir as it travels through the water column to the surface and ultimately sinks and falls out in a […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

Santa Barbara Oil Seeps

1_89483_140356.jpg

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 […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

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. […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More