Multimedia Items
The Stars Are Out in the Deep Sea
Pale brittlestars coil their tentacles around a pink Paragorgia coral photographed during a dive in the submersible Alvin this week to the seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico—1,500 meters below the…
Read More50 Years of the WHOI Buoy Group
Underwater Geyser
A black smoker chimney releases hot hydrothermal vent fluid filled with mineral particles that make it look like smoke. Diving in Alvin in 1993, scientists Holger Jannasch and Cindy Van…
Read MoreIt’s Off to Work We Go
Daily commutes often begin with getting your vehicle out of the garage. And so it is even for the human-occupied submersible Alvin. The 35,000-pound sub slides on a railway out…
Read MoreA Bite Out of a Buoy
In the early 1960s, the WHOI Buoy Group struggled to keep its moorings intact and its instruments functioning in the harsh ocean environment. Some equipment, such as this toroid, or…
Read MoreArctic Catch
A net towed through the Bering Sea yielded a catch of copepods, tiny shrimp-like animals that are critical links in the productive Arctic Ocean food chain. In spring 2009, WHOI…
Read MoreLoss and Opportunity
In 2007, WHOI biologist Darlene Ketten (in blue), turtle physiology expert Jeanette Wyneken of Florida Atlantic University (in white) and a team of biologists and veterinarians conducted a necropsy of…
Read MoreThe Moor the Merrier
WHOI Assistant Engineer Jeff Pietro sends a group of flotation spheres to the deck of the R/V Atlantic Explorer in preparation for a mooring deployment in the Sargasso Sea. Six…
Read MoreSay “Ah”
At Crab Spa, a diffuse-flow hydrothermal vent site on the East Pacific Rise, Alvin’s manipulator arm holds a sensor developed by Nadine Le Bris that measures temperature, pH, and sulfide…
Read MoreA Wing and a Sonar
In 1960, WHOI researchers on the research vessel Crawford devised a novel way of measuring seafloor slope. They took sonar depth measurements from two fixed points about 50 feet apart:…
Read MoreNew Students, New Tasks
MIT/WHOI Joint Program students (left to right) Scott Haven, Adam Trainer, Nicholas Macfarlane, Daniel Amrhein and Melissa Moulton retrieve a water sampler during the 2010 Jake Peirson Summer Cruise aboard…
Read MoreR&R for Jason
Whenever possible, the Jason Group at WHOI schedules maintenance of the hard-working remotely operated vehicle. Here, WHOI contractor Scott Hansen works on the vehicle’s thruster motors. ROV Jason recently completed…
Read MoreAlvin Gets a Bath
Alvin pilots kick off their traditional “skins party,” during a Dive and Discover expedition to the Galápagos Rift in May 2005. After the last dive of every expedition the pilots…
Read MoreA Midwestern Hemisphere
One of two new hemispheres for the research sub Alvin cools at Wisconsin-based forge, Ladish, in June 2008. Once forged, the hemispheres, which began as 35,000 pounds of titanium ingots,…
Read MoreSend in Sentry
In September 2009, the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry explored the ocean bottom off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., for underwater methane seeps. Go to WHOI’s Dive and Discover…
Read MoreAlvin Returns Home
2010 Haiti Earthquake
Originally published online January 1, 2010
Read MoreAlvin to Investigate Gulf Spill
In April 2010, the deep submersible Alvin (shown here with its support ship, R/V Atlantis in the background) carried out a month-long expedition to to the Galapagos Spreading Center in…
Read MoreWhat’s In a Name
In October 2007, U. S. and Filipino scientists searched the deep water of the Celebes Sea in Southeast Asia, for new species. When they discovered this extraordinary worm—which they called…
Read MoreThe Icebot
Originally published online October 29, 2010
Read MoreTagging a Basking Shark
Originally published online January 12, 2012
Read MoreHands-on Design
In 2011 the Human Occupied Vehicle (HOV) Alvin will receive a major upgrade, including a new titanium personnel sphere. This full scale mock-up of the new sphere will help engineers…
Read MoreThe Weddell Waddle
Scientists working in Antarctica on sea ice in the Weddell Sea are frequently visited by penguins. These were checking up on WHOI Associate Scientist Hanu Singh and his team—Clay Kunz,…
Read MoreAlvin Takes a Bow
A crane lifts the submersible Alvin off the WHOI dock to load it onto R/V Atlantis for a research cruise to the Gulf of Mexico. The crane isn’t bending—it’s appearance…
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