Multimedia Items
The Arctic Ocean Ecosystem
Despite the harsh weather and the ice cover, the Arctic Ocean is teeming with life. It has a complex but abundance ecosystem that supports large predators such as walruses, polar […]
Read MoreThe Ocean is Earth’s Oxygen Bank
Oxygen is like money for Earth, and the ocean acts like a bank. Deposits are made in three ocean layers: At the surface through exchange with air, in the water, when phytoplankton produce O2 from sunlight and CO2, and on the seafloor where plants and corals live. Withdrawals occur when organisms consume oxygen. Oxygen is tightly connected to life in the ocean, and can tell us a lot about an ecosystem’s health & productivity. This is why we need an ocean oxygen budget. A simple idea, but has been difficult until now.
Read MoreGroundwater and the Ocean
Groundwater comes from precipitation that falls on land. Some of this water evaporates into the atmosphere, gets taken up by plants, or flows into streams, but some infiltrates into the […]
Read MoreNot Quiet on the Ocean Front
Mara Freilich, a graduate student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, is exploring where plankton thrives in the ocean. Her research area is the Mediterranean Sea, where less-salty, less-dense […]
Read MoreA Mythic Ocean Instrument
WHOI scientist Benjamin Van Mooy (right) and MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Jamie Collins flank the proof-of-concept version of an instrument called PHORCYS. Van Mooy co-developed the […]
Read MoreOceanography, Up Close
WHOI biologist Gareth Lawson (center), MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Stephan Gallagher (right), and MIT undergraduate Elisabeth Boles examine a sample of seawater full of tiny plants and animals […]
Read MoreMany Languages, One Ocean
Corals, coral health, and the threats facing reefs worldwide will be just a few of the items on the agenda at a new conference tomorrow at WHOI. “Oceanos: WHOI en […]
Read MoreAnimals Behaving Like Plants
Meet a curious single-celled organism called Mesodinium rubrum. They are shaped like “8”s with hairlike cilia around them that they use to swim in the ocean. They usually graze on […]
Read MoreOcean Iron Links
Many areas of the ocean are nutrient-rich, but lack iron, which fuels the growth of phytoplankton, tiny plant-like organisms that form the base of the ocean food chain and […]
Read MoreGetting a Better View of the Arctic Ocean
On a rare sunny day in the Arctic, optical instruments are deployed off of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) vessel Oscar Dyson in the Chukchi Sea. WHOI […]
Read MoreFarming in the Ocean
Will Ostrom (blue hard hat), a senior engineering assistant in the WHOI Department of Physical Oceanography, and Joe Alvernes, a crewmember of the fishing vessel Nobska, scrape mussels from […]
Read MorePreserving the Plants
Dick Backus, a WHOI scientist emeritus and curator emeritus of the Herbarium at the Marine Biological Laboratory/WHOI Library, works on identifying another plant specimen with Pam Polloni, acting […]
Read MoreThere Goes the Neighborhood
A curious penguin observes a group of scientists temporarily squatting on an icy terrain in Antarctica. WHOI scientist Ben Van Mooy (right) is leading a team that will core […]
Read MoreWhat Lies Under the Beach?
A team of international scientists led by Ken Buesseler at WHOI dug pits to sample sand and groundwater at a popular surfing beach in Yotsukura, Japan, for residual radioactivity […]
Read MoreProtecting the Troops
During World War II, WHOI scientists and engineers contributed to the war effort with some 40 projects that advanced understanding of underwater sound, helped predict the movement of […]
Read MoreBacteria and Diatoms
Bacteria and unicellular marine plants called diatoms depend on each other for some essential nutrients, but they also compete for other nutrients. So life gets complicated in the chemical soup […]
Read MoreSnow Globe of Plankton
Fast “Flyer”
The NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer Array includes two types of observing systems: fixed moorings and mobile vehicles, such as this REMUS 600. With its […]
Read MoreLittle Gems
WHOI biologist Scott Lindell examines a container of gametophytes, germinal kelp plants, being prepared for use in a combined aquaculture experiment he is conducting. In six months, the millimeter-long […]
Read MoreDigging for Radioactivity
Former WHOI post-doctoral scientist Virginie Sanial sampled groundwater beneath beaches in Japan to look for radioactive cesium-137 from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant accident. To her surprise, she and […]
Read MoreThe Sea Around Them
A life-size bronze statue of author, researcher, and environmental advocate Rachel Carson seems to be watching as the research vessel Altantis returned to Woods Hole recently. Carson worked for […]
Read MoreCompeting for Attention
Eyes on Both Coasts
OceanCube is an autonomous underwater coastal observatory that provides real-time data and images from a variety of biological, physical, and chemical sensors. A team from WHOI led by biologist Scott […]
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