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Primed for Catastrophic Collapse

Primed for Catastrophic Collapse

Rising 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) above the Samoan island of Ta’u, Mount Lata is an active volcano. One of its sides collapsed in landslides that left a steep escarpment primed…

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Dangerous Drifters

Dangerous Drifters

Dennis McGillicuddy launches a satellite-tracked drifter into the Bay of Fundy to examine how ocean currents circulate water and the harmful algae Alexandrium into and out of the bay. (Photo…

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Rainbow Rock

Rainbow Rock

A thin section of pyroxene from the Indian Ocean with colors produced by light passing up through a polarizer and the rock’s crystal lattice. Earth’s upper mantle is composed mainly…

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Penguins on Parade

Penguins on Parade

Macquarie Island, a tiny island between Tasmania and Antarctica in the Southern Ocean, is home to large colonies of Royal penguins and other animals. The island is a Tasmanian State…

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Going, Going, Gone

Going, Going, Gone

Swimmers secure the submersible Alvin‘s science basket in the front of the vehicle at the start of another dive. The sub makes about 175 dives each year to depths of…

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Open Wide

Open Wide

A giant tubeworm in its protective white tube, collected during the 2005 Galapagos Rift expedition, is examined by biologist Breea Govenar aboard ship. The expedition was featured on the WHOI…

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Home Port

Home Port

An aerial view of the village of Woods Hole, with the Institution dock facilities at the center. WHOI research vessels Knorr, Oceanus, and Atlantis are home, a rare occurrence. (Woods…

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Stormy Seas

Stormy Seas

Veteran seagoing WHOI researchers Craig Marquette (left) and Will Ostrom deploy a mooring with tiny temperature probes from R/V Oceanus during a gale off Cape Hatteras. (Photo by Chris Linder,…

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Ross Sea 2006

Ross Sea 2006

WHOI geochemist Mak Saito joined an international research team aboard the icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer in the austral summer of 2005-06 to explore the ecological struggle between two major groups…

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Clues in a Caldera

Clues in a Caldera

In March 2006, WHOI geochemist Ken Sims climbed into Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua to collect gas samples. By gathering samples worldwide, Sims is exploring how volcanic gases cause climate changes…

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All Ears

All Ears

To learn about marine mammal hearing, researchers use the new WHOI necropsy and CT scan facility to reveal the internal anatomy of ears. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic…

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Outposts of the Deep

Outposts of the Deep

A tall, portable light system, the “deep-sea light post,” illuminates a portion of Hulk, a 25-meter (82-foot) hydrothermal chimney located on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off Seattle. (Woods Hole…

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Colorful Currents

Colorful Currents

A complex circulation system in the Arctic Ocean is designated by red and blue arrows (warm and cold water). WHOI scientists and engineers are exploring how global climate change is…

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Biological Bongos

Biological Bongos

Twin plankton nets, called ‘bongo nets’, hang over the side of a ship. The nets are towed through the water to capture copepods, which are counted to track their abundance…

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Down the Hatch

Down the Hatch

It took two weeks for eight members of the Alvin Group to remove thousands of bolts, hoses, panels, and the submersible’s 6-foot titanium personnel sphere during its periodic overhaul in…

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Blue Water Over the Rail

Blue Water Over the Rail

Twenty-foot waves pummeled R/V Oceanus in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras. (Photo by Christopher Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

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Follow that Float

Follow that Float

Seaman Clindor Cacho works on the R/V Oceanus guiding floats as they are prepared for deployment into the Irminger Sea east of Greenland. (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic…

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Bigger than a Breadbox?

Bigger than a Breadbox?

Research Specialist Anne Cohen sizes up a Pavona coral on Johnston Atoll for its potential to provide a climate record. (Photo by Phil Lobel)

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Glimpses of Gliders

Glimpses of Gliders

David Sutherland, an MIT/WHOI Joint Program student in the Physical Oceanography department, joined an ascending glider during a test in the Bahamas in January 2003. (Photo by Dave Fratantoni, Woods…

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The Knife’s Edge

The Knife's Edge

Offering a rare look at its form below the water line, Research Vessel Atlantis perches on blocks for routine maintenance in a shipyard in the Bahamas. (Photo by Robert Elder,…

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All Eyes

All Eyes

Captain A.D. Colburn studies the radar screen on the bridge of Research Vessel (R/V) Knorr during studies of Red Sea overflow in the Gulf of Aden. (Photo by David Fisichella,…

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At the Water’s Edge

At the Water's Edge

WHOI Assistant Scientist Katrina Edwards collects water samples from Salt Pond in Falmouth, Massachusetts, in search of bacteria that make their own compasses,known as magnetotactic bacteria. (Photo by Tom Kleindist,…

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Picking Through the Pack

Picking Through the Pack

Working from the National Science Foundation icebreaker/research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer researchers thread their way through pack ice during Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (GLOBEC) operations off Antarctica in winter 2001.…

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Surveying the Stream

Surveying the Stream

The 142-foot ketch Atlantis in rolling seas in June 1950 during a six-ship survey of the Gulf Stream. Operation Cabot was the largest survey of the Gulf Stream undertaken to…

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