Multimedia Items

Mike McCarthy prepares a three-meter surface buoy — used in climate and oceanographic studies — for sea. Meteorological instruments will be secured on a tower on the top of the…

Oil and methane bubble to the ocean’s surface from seeps off Coal Oil Point, near Santa Barbara, California. The oil seeps provide a natural “laboratory” for WHOI chemist Chris Reddy…

The five-thousandth Atlantis hydrographic station was recorded in 1960. This photo shows Arnold Clarke making one of those stations. In March 1962, Oceanus magazine gave this description: “A hydrographic station…

Because their bodies have no hard parts, gelatinous animals, commonly called “jellies,” have always been fascinating and elusive to naturalists. They were already a favorite subject for Henry Bigelow (WHOI’s…

The final stages of recovering the deep-diving submersible Alvin to its support ship, the R/V Atlantis, involves attaching a tow line to the sub. Alvin technician Anton Zafereo tosses the…

Geologist Adam Soule examines a rock sample from the Lonar Crater in India, one of roughly 150 meteorite impact sites on Earth, but one of the only impacts in basalt.…

After securing the lifting lines used to recover the human occupied vehicle (HOV) Alvin back to its support vessel Atlantis, deckhand Ronnie Whims dives back into the ocean. Alvin has…

Jon Woodruff, a graduate of the WHOI/MIT Joint Program, looks for bits of grit and shell in sediment samples that he cores from lagoons and marshes (including this marsh, on…

Matt Heintz (left), Robert McCabe (middle), and Andy Bowen (right) deploy the new deep-sea vehicle Nereus off the WHOI dock during testing in April 2009. Nereus successfully reached the deepest…

Copepods are teeny crustaceans that play a big role in the food chain; they float around eating algae and in turn get eaten by bigger animals. This type of copepod,…

A surface buoy bobs in the rough water of the Northwest Atlantic near the Gulf Stream. The buoy, one of many deployed in late 2005 as part of the CLIMODE…

The Deep Submergence Laboratory’s mission is to further human understanding of the deep-sea floor by developing systems for remote, unmanned exploration.  Here MIT/WHOI Joint Program Student Jordan Stanway tests propellers…

Sediment traps are containers that scientists place in the ocean to collect tiny sediment or larger accumulations called “marine snow” —bits of organic matter, dead sea creatures, shells, dust and…

Physical oceanographer Amy Bower, left, and research associate David Fisichella display a RAFOS Float.  These floats are neutrally buoyant, free drifting instruments, which are launched from a ship in the…

Dave Owen developed an interest in deep-sea photography — then a field in its infancy — early in his career at WHOI. During a cruise to the Mediterranean and Aegean…

A McKay’s Bunting is a special sight. Named in honor of American naturalist Charles McKay, these birds summer and breed on a few remote islands in the Bering Sea, and…

Pieces of plastic collected by one plankton net tow in the surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean at 30°27’N, 55°42.2’W in October, 1992 (penny shown for scale). These samples are…

Research Engineer Matt Heintz tests the capibilities of a manipulator arm that he helped develop for the new deep-diving vehicle Nereus in the WHOI Deep Submergence Lab. In this case,…