Multimedia Items
Hyperiid amphipod: a shimmer in the net
This hyperiid amphipod is a member of the crustacean family that typically act as parasites to gelatinous neighbors, such as salps. This particular suborder lives exclusively in the marine environment. Paul Caiger, who snapped the picture, saw this particular shrimp-like species during an ocean twilight zone research cruise on R/V Neil Armstrong (2020).
Read More360˚ Video: Deploying Mesobot
You’re on deck as the stealthy underwater robot Mesobot makes another trip into the ocean twilight zone to test equipment that will help scientists track bits of “environmental DNA” floating in the water.
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 MoreRelief and splendor in a small village full of big science
Welcome to the 1940s! A time when World War II was underway in Europe and Americans were filled with hope and the beginning of a new era. While working long hours on wartime and post-wartime projects, WHOI staff blew off steam by performing in 1945 and 1946 stage shows called the Woods Hole follies.
Read MoreMaritime reflections along Yaquina Bay Bridge
On the shore beyond the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport, Oregon, Ordinary Seaman Michael Sessa captured this serene vista while WHOI’s research vessel Atlantis was in port
Read MoreThe Ocean Twilight Zone: Earth’s Final Frontier
The mysteries of the ocean twilight zone are waiting to be explored. What was once thought to be desert-like isn’t a desert at all. Where the deep sea creatures lurk there are incredible biomass and biodiversity. The ocean twilight zone is a huge habitat that is very difficult to explore. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is poised to change this because we have the engineers that can help us overcome these challenges. Making new discoveries in ocean exploration is more important now than ever.
Read MoreInspired to Understand – Amy Apprill
Amy Apprill was a midwestern citizen before the call of the ocean found her. Now a resident expert in microbial ecology in WHOI’s Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department, she’s studying a growing epidemic affecting coral reefs across the world, known as stony coral tissue loss disease. With an eye for detail, Apprill’s forensic approach analyzes coral sickness down to differences in DNA.
Read More30 years later, traces of an oil spill persist
In 2018, researchers from WHOI and their collaborators from Haverford College collected oil samples from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill deposited on the shores of McClure Bay in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Read MoreCan you spot the eumunid crab?
This vulnerable gorgonian soft coral is the perfect home for the vibrant eunumid crab. See if you can spot it!
Read MoreROV Jason captures underwater video during earthquake
In January and February 2020, scientists on R/V Atlantis explored hydrothermal vents on the Cayman Rise. They used the remotely operated vehicle Jason to get an up-close view of the vents and life around them. The vents lie on a seismically active part of the seafloor known as a mid-ocean ridge. Deep-sea shrimp swarm the vents, feeding on microbes that live on chemicals flowing from the vents. While they were there, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck just 100 miles away. Scientists will now be able to study how seismic activity affects hydrothermal vents and the life around them.
Read MoreSentry dives to a biological oasis
WHOI operators deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry off the coast of Oregon at a site called “Pythias Oasis.”
Read MoreAquaculture pioneer Scott Lindell presents at TEDx Cambridge
Current farming and fishing practices are having devastating impacts on our climate and environment. Scott Lindell, research specialist at The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, reveals how marine aquaculture can sustainably feed the world’s growing population.
Read MoreA tenacious ship pushes forward
R/V Atlantis rides out stormy seas in the North Atlantic during NASA’s Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study (NAAMES) cruise to study the processes associated with the world’s largest phytoplankton bloom. This image was shot from the NASA C-130 aircraft during a storm at the end of the expedition. (Photo by John Hair, NASA)
Read MoreOases in Sea Ice Are Essential to Life in Antarctica
This video explains the key physical, biological and ecological processes in oases on the Antarctic icy coast — polynyas. Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Delaware are trying to unveil crucial connections among the physical and biological components in the polynyas and to understand how the Antarctic ecosystem responds to changes in the large-scale environment.
Read MoreA transient iceberg kingdom meanders through the Southern Ocean
Icebergs drift by the Rothera Station in Antarctica during the final cruise of of the Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean (DIMES) project aboard the British icebreaker RRS James Clark Ross
Read MoreValue Beyond View: The Ocean Twilight Zone
How does the ocean twilight zone benefit life on Earth? The ocean twilight zone helps regulates our climate. Storing two to six billion tons of carbon annually. That’s up to six times the amount of carbon emitted from autos worldwide. Preventing an increase in temperature between 6-11°F. The ocean twilight zone supports a healthy ocean ecosystem. Containing 10 times more fish than the rest of the ocean. Providing food for many other animals in the ocean. The ocean twilight zone could also play an important role in feeding a growing population. We are working to better understand this realm in order to inform sustainable management decisions.
Read MoreOpen Ocean Diving Observations
Watch and learn how blue and black water diving is conducted in the open ocean and what these divers see during the day and during the twilight zone migration at night.
Read MoreTagging and Tracking Wild Squid
Squid are ecologically important marine animals that play a key role in many ocean ecosystems and fisheries. Measuring squid movements, energetics, and habitat use in their natural environment provides important insight into their ecology. However, because the inherent challenges of monitoring these soft-bodied, open-ocean-dwelling organisms, fine-scale observations of their behavior are rare. Bio-logging tags are an increasingly useful way to remotely study squid behavior in their natural environments.
Read More2019 Year in Review
Enjoy this montage of video captured throughout 2019 documenting how WHOI researchers explore the ocean planet to tackle the most pressing questions about our water world and find solutions to benefit society.
Read MoreYellowstone Lake: ROV Yogi
See what the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Yogi helped scientists discover beneath the surface of Yellowstone Lake.
Read MoreMarch of the Penguins
Emperor penguins are some of the most striking and charismatic animals on Earth, but a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has found that a warming climate may render them extinct by the end of this century. The study, which was part of an international collaboration between scientists, published Nov. 7, 2019, in the journal Global Change Biology.
The fate of the penguins is largely tied to the fate of sea ice, which the animals use as a home base for breeding, feeding and molting, she notes. Emperor penguins tend to build their colonies on ice with extremely specific conditions—it must be locked into the shoreline of the Antarctic continent, but close enough to open seawater to give the birds access to food for themselves and their young. As climate warms, however, that sea ice will gradually disappear, robbing the birds of their habitat, food sources, and ability to raise their chicks.
Jenouvrier and her team conducted the study by combining two existing computer models. The first, a global climate model created by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), offered projections of where and when sea ice would form under different climate scenarios. The second, a model of the penguin population itself, calculated how colonies might react to changes in that ice habitat.
Read MoreWhale Blow Microbiome
Researchers from WHOI, NOAA Fisheries Southwest Science Center, SR3 Sealife, and the Vancouver Aquarium analyzed whale blow samples collected via drone to identify a core group of bacteria in the respiratory tract of healthy whales.
Read MoreWhale Biopsy Collection
A team gathers skin samples from healthy humpback whales in waters off the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Researchers obtain samples by releasing a biopsy-collecting dart, which bounces off the whales’ skin and into the water. The team then retrieves the floating dart and brings it back to a lab for analysis.
Read MoreGirls in Science Program: bioacoustics
August 2019: Woods Hole Sea Grant has teamed up with Earthwatch Institute on the Girls in Science Fellowship. This fellowship aims to promote diversity and expose young women to a variety of marine careers in STEM. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Research Specialist Laela Sayigh is the principal investigator working with the fellows analyzing marine mammal bioacoustics data.
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