Image

Home After a Long Day?s Work

The research vessel Tioga returns home to Woods Hole in September 2010 after a day of research in Buzzards Bay. Scientists on the vessel spent the day collecting shallow coastal sediment with a multicorer—an oceanographic instrument that drives cylindrical tubes into the seafloor to take multiple samples at one time. The samples will be analyzed for pore water—fluid filling the spaces between grains of sediment—and Neodymium (Nd), a trace element that provides a chemical “fingerprint” in the water and on solid particles that scientists use to trace past circulation and sedimentation in the ocean. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)