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Yeti Crab

Alvin discovers a big white crab with long “fur” on its legs, now called Kiwa hirsuta.

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Hydrothermal Vents

Geologist Susan Humphris explains hydrothermal vents — seafloor openings where heated, mineral-rich water escapes from Earth’s crust.

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Giant worm from the deep sea

Giant worm from the deep sea

MIT/WHOI Joint Program student Kate Buckman stands in front of the submersible Alvin, holding the iconic animal from undersea hydrothermal vents: a giant tubeworm (Riftia pachyptila.) The fast-growing worms have…

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The once and future Alvin

The once and future Alvin

A photo, circa 1967, shows the research submersible Alvin with two support swimmers, as crew watch from Lulu, Alvin’s first tender ship. WHOI still operates the U.S. Navy-owned Deep Submergence…

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Deep-sea Corals

Deep-sea corals thrive without sunlight, filter-feeding in the deep ocean and forming ancient structures that reveal clues about past ocean conditions.

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Water is terrific! Bugs? Not so hot

Water is terrific! Bugs? Not so hot

Maya Bhatia, a doctoral student at WHOI, took hundreds of water samples this summer to learn about water chemistry during seven weeks of research in western Greenland. Bhatia, who works…

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Looking it over

Looking it over

MIT/WHOI Joint Program student Stephanie Owens isn’t on a jungle gym—she’s checking specialized pumps used to filter water collected at various depths in the ocean and extract trace amounts of…

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Going with the flow

Going with the flow

MIT/WHOI Joint Program graduate students and their instructors take a break from hiking for a group photo at the base of Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica during a June 2008…

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Buoys in the blue

Buoys in the blue

Free-diving, WHOI biologist Jesús Pineda checks the line securing two below-surface buoys to his mooring on a coral reef in the Red Sea, in June 2008. The buoys bear Arabic…

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Conserving cold-water corals

Conserving cold-water corals

A large pink sea fan, which belongs to the genus Paragorgia, holds within its branches a thriving community of brittle stars, crabs, and shrimp. Deep coral ecosystems, which host extremely…

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Out from the sediments, into the water

Out from the sediments, into the water

WHOI Chemist Carl Lamborg holds a Niskin bottle, which is used to collect water samples. During work conducted in Waquoit Bay in 2005, Lamborg, fellow chemist Matt Charette, and other…

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Protecting fish nurseries

Protecting fish nurseries

Juvenile coral reef fish get food and protection from predators among the roots and nutrient-rich waters of coastal mangrove swamps. These valuable fish nurseries are disappearing at an alarming rate.…

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All Aboard, Standing Room Only

All Aboard, Standing Room Only

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s “workhorse” research vessel, R/V Oceanus, leaves the WHOI dock in July 2007, more-than-fully loaded with equipment for the NTAS (Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station) project. In a…

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Launching the Mooring

Deploying a 180-meter mooring is high-stakes science—years of work rides on a smooth launch and vital ocean data collection.

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Rocks Do Tell Tales

Rocks Do Tell Tales

A rock sample, collected from the Central Indian Ridge, a mountain chain running through the Indian Ocean, sparkles with information. It’s channel is lined with a fine-grained mineral called chalcopyrite as…

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Studies of a Pristine Setting

Studies of a Pristine Setting

Sunset creeps across the shore at the Liquid Jungle Laboratory in Panama, a new, privately-funded research lab for the study of tropical marine and land ecosystems. WHOI scientists helped design…

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Cheerful Farewell

Cheerful Farewell

Students from Seltjarnarnes Community in Iceland toured the WHOI-operated research vessel Knorr in early October prior to its departure for research in the Irminger Sea.  The school is one of five…

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It Takes a Village

It Takes a Village

Boats fill Eel Pond in the village of Woods Hole,which is home to a variety of research institutions, including (left to right) National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, Marine Biological Laboratory,…

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Sparring on the Dock

Sparring on the Dock

Engineers Will Ostrom (foreground) and Dan Duffany prepare to test the ballast of a spar buoy off the WHOI dock in July 2008. The buoy was built as a replacement…

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