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Stone Giants

Stone Giants

The R/V Atlantis works off the coast of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the southeastern Pacific Ocean during a 1998 research expedition. During the cruise, researchers used the submersible Alvin…

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CT Scans Reveal Coral’s Secrets

CT Scans Reveal Coral's Secrets

WHOI researchers Neal E. Cantin and Anne L. Cohen examine a Red Sea coral specimen just outside  a CT scanner tube. Their pioneering use of CT scanning revealed that these…

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Piecing Together Titanic

Piecing Together Titanic

This mosaic of the RMS Titanic on the seafloor 2.5 miles below the surface was assembled in 1987 using nearly 100 of the 53,000 images taken by the towed sled…

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Surviving Graduate School

Surviving Graduate School

A group of new graduate students in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program try on emergency survival suits, also called “Gumby suits,” during the 2010 Jake Peirson Summer Cruise. Each year, the…

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Deep-Sea Organisms in Shallow Waters

Deep-Sea Organisms in Shallow Waters

In May, scientists aboard R/V Oceanus collected sediments and water—shown here in a CTD rosette—to examine the dispersal distances of amoeba-like benthic organisms off Massachusetts and Georgia. In the lab,…

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The Track of a Hunter

The Track of a Hunter

The track of the hybrid remotely operated vehicle (HROV) Nereus is depicted here as it hunted for hydrothermal vents in the Cayman Trough in 2009. The green and blue dots…

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Outer Space on the Seafloor

Outer Space on the Seafloor

The discovery of rusticles—rusting iron—on the wreck of the RMS Titanic opened a new field of research into the microscopic bacteria eating the iron. If bacteria can thrive on iron…

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Brrrr!

Brrrr!

Not all scuba diving occurs in balmy seas or near coral reefs. Scientists dive in Antarctica to collect zooplankton that occur nowhere else, and–as shown here–divers brave the icy waters…

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Welcome Home Atlantis

Welcome Home Atlantis

Nathan (left) and Patrick McGuire, sons of WHOI associate scientist Jeff McGuire, welcome R/V Atlantis home to Woods Hole with the Lego models of the ship they made this summer.…

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Big Shrimp

Big Shrimp

Scientists collected this 2.5-inch juvenile stomatopod, or “snapping shrimp,” in a plankton net in the Arabian Sea. Adult stomatopods live on coral reefs, where big eyes and good color vision…

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The Impact of Storms Past and Future

The Impact of Storms Past and Future

WHOI scientist Jeff Donnelly takes a sediment core in the marsh behind Cape Cod’s Menauhant Beach, to show participants in the 2004 Ocean Science Journalism program a layer of sand…

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Celebrating the End of a Science-Filled Summer

Celebrating the End of a Science-Filled Summer

Students, scientists, and organizers—including Ambrose Jearld (far left, Northeast Fisheries Science Center), George Liles (center, Woods Hole Aquarium), and Ben Gutierrez (third from right, USGS)—recently celebrated a summer of learning…

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The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944

The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944

On September 14, 1944, with a category 4 hurricane working its way up the Eastern seaboard, WHOI’s research vessel Atlantis was secured to the National Marine Fisheries Service dock in…

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Almost Home

Almost Home

Ordinary seaman, and occasional Alvin support swimmer, Ronald Whims, relays directions to Alvin’s pilot and helps guide the submersible into position for recovery by the research vessel Atlantis during a…

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RMS Titanic, Meet DSV Alvin

RMS Titanic, Meet DSV Alvin

The wreckage of RMS Titanic was discovered on the seafloor 25 years ago this week. A year later, a WHOI-led expedition returned with the deep-sea vehicle Alvin and Jason Jr.,…

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Two Ships Pass

Two Ships Pass

In 2009, R/V Knorr and Atlantis crossed paths in San Diego. They barely missed reuniting again in Woods Hole recently—Knorr left last weekend for Greenland while Atlantis arrives over the…

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Looking Back: 25 Years Ago Today

Looking Back: 25 Years Ago Today

The first evidence that researchers aboard the R/V Knorr had found the RMS Titanic came on September 1, 1985, from this mundane-looking photo of what turned out to be one…

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New Kid on the Block

New Kid on the Block

On Aug. 31, 1931, WHOI’s first deep-ocean research vessel Atlantis arrived in Woods Hole for the first time. The 142-foot, steel-hulled ship was the first built for the U.S. specifically…

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Putting Alvin Together Again

Putting Alvin Together Again

Every few years, the research sub Alvin is completely overhauled. Here, Alvin is reassembled during its first major refit in 1967. The crew included chief mechanic George Gibson (standing on…

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Flying escorts

Flying escorts

Alvin pilot Mark Spear photographed two brown pelicans escorting R/V Atlantis from Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica after taking on fuel and loading science equipment in January. The largest of the…

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