Multimedia Items
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.…
Read MoreAll 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…
Read MoreLaunching the Mooring
By Fiamma Straneo :: Originally published online March 27, 2007
Read MoreRocks 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…
Read MoreSay “Cheese” Deep beneath the Pacific
The ride in the submersible Alvin is cozy, with just enough space for three people. Mark Spear, an Alvin pilot, snapped this shot standing up as the submersible returned to…
Read MoreStudies 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…
Read MoreCheerful 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…
Read MoreIt 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,…
Read MoreSparring 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…
Read MoreBundled Up while Diving Deep
Sweaters and knit hats are typical clothing for scientists and a pilot traveling in the submersible Alvin. Temperatures in the (unheated) submersible drop as the depth increases—in this case, to 1.6 miles depth (2,660…
Read MoreHelicopter View of Greenland’s Ice Sheet
From a helicopter, deep meltwater channels on Greenland’s massive ice sheet become visible. Lakes form on the ice each summer as the sun returns. As lakes fill, the channels overflow and become…
Read MoreGetting a Nitrogen Fix
Biogeochemist Karen Casciotti is working to understand how microorganisms affect the exchange of excess nutrients (principally nitrate) between groundwater and the coastal ocean. Casciotti and colleagues are using microbiological, molecular,…
Read MoreAngry Irminger
The research vessel Knorr, carrying WHOI scientists and international researchers, was several days into a month-long voyage to study the Irminger Sea when it smacked into an intense Atlantic storm.…
Read MoreA Jelly-Eat-Jelly World
Many kinds of gelatinous and transparent “jellies” inhabit the oceans, and some even eat other jellies. On the left—biting off more than it can chew—is Lampea pancerina, a species of…
Read MorePurple Parasol
Elegant and diaphanous, the jellyfish Pelagia noctiluca is pretty, but packs a punch. These jellies (also called “purple-striped jelly” or “mauve stinger”) produce bright bioluminescent light (noctiluca means “night light”)…
Read MoreForging a New Adventure
The original personnel sphere of the Alvin submersible is shaped from a steel plate in 1964 at Lukens Steel Co., in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. The sphere was used until 1973, when…
Read MoreWith a Little Help From My Friends
Engineers and crew members load the surface buoy of a Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) onto the research vessel Oceanus in July 2008. Funded through the Cooperative Institute for Climate…
Read MoreInvasion of “Alien Vomit”?
Originally published online February 13, 2014
Read MoreStrolling through an Arctic Town
Sarah Das and Mark Behn, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, work on Greenland’s ice sheet. To get there, they pass through Ilulissat, a coastal village north of the Arctic…
Read MoreA Picture Worth a Thousand Cells
Research associate Alexi Shalapyonok (foreground), and plankton biologists Heidi Sosik and Rob Olson load the FlowCytobot onto the coastal boat Mytilus. Based on the principles of the biologist’s flow cytometer,…
Read MorePoor Woman’s Umbrella
WHOI postdoctoral fellow Nicole Keller (Geology & Geophysics) takes a break from hiking the Barva volcano in Costa Rica in June 2008 to surround herself with the monstrous leaf of…
Read MoreToo Crowded for Scallops?
Researcher Mary Carman recovered blades of sea grass and a lonely scallop covered with sea squirts, an invasive nuisance species, from Sengekontacket Pond on Martha’s Vineyard. Juvenile scallops dangle from eelgrass…
Read MoreNecessity for Invention
Henry Stetson, an assistant curator of paleontology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, was among the earliest appointments to the WHOI staff. As research associate in submarine geology, he designed…
Read MoreRaise Some Glass
Glassy, angular fragments of volcanic rock provided key evidence that volcanoes on the Arctic Ocean floor have exploded violently, defying the common assumption that there is too much pressure and…
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