Multimedia Items
The Krill Crate
Scientists from WHOI and the University of Oregon transport a tank of juvenile krill (gray square box on small boat) to Palmer Station in Antarctica, where they will be analyzed…
Read MoreSplash in the Dark
The human-occupied submersible Alvin isn’t often recovered after dark—usually it’s on deck in time for dinner, even though the sub holds enough oxygen, food, and water for the pilot and…
Read MoreHydrothermal Vents: Oasis in the dark
The waters around hydrothermal vents may seem harsh and inhospitable to life, but in reality, these regions are oases that support rich and diverse ecosystems that make a living off…
Read MoreReef Ray
A manta ray glides over a coral reef on Jarvis Island in the Central Equatorial Pacific. A team from WHOI scientist Anne Cohen‘s lab, and scientist emeritus Pat Lohmann went…
Read MoreFeatured Image: Teeming with Life
A close-up view of an Acropora coral reveals small individual coral polyps (the small, button-like dots), but a microscope is necessary to study the millions of inhabitants inside the coral…
Read MoreA Mountainous Task
The Galápagos archipelago is made up of 13 major volcanic islands that occupy a submerged platform rising more than three kilometers (nearly two miles) above the seafloor. During an expedition…
Read MoreCorals Under Threat
A large school of bigeye trevally swim past a submarine carrying WHOI scientists descending in Cabu Pulmo National Park on the east coast of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. Overfishing had decimated…
Read MoreAbove the Reef Flat
Kan-Min of the Dongsha Atoll Research Station steers a research vessel over Dongsha’s coral reef in the South China Sea, where former MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Tom DeCarlo conducted fieldwork.…
Read MoreHunting Zombie Microbes
Far below the ocean floor, sediments are teeming with bizarre, zombie-like microbes. Although they’re technically alive, they grow in slow motion, and can take decades for a single cell to…
Read MoreIn Praise of Invertebrates
Most of the countless animals in the ocean twilight zone do not have a backbone. Invertebrates include zooplankton and jellies and account for much of the life beyond the reach of…
Read MoreFeatured image: Glider Pilot
After a journey of more than two months from Miami, a team recovers a Spray glider on the continental shelf southeast of Cape Cod in June 2015. By changing its…
Read MoreSnuggles and Shellfish
After being measured and tagged by researchers during a 2007 Polar Discovery expedition in Antarctica, an adult Adelie penguin snuggles back down over its chicks to warm and feed them. In…
Read MoreGood Omen
“I think it was a good omen, as everything has gone smoothly so far,” said WHOI senior scientist Al Plueddemann when describing the appearance of a snowy owl on the…
Read MoreCoral in a Warming World
This coral’s stark white color indicates that it is stressed, probably by warming water. Most corals host a type of algae that produce food for the live coral polyps and…
Read MoreWomen on Ice
Sign of Stress
A staghorn coral branch (Acropora cervicornis) on a reef west of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, suffers from White Band Syndrome, a coral disease that has been a significant source…
Read MoreMighty Mites
Under a microscope, a copepod looks fearsome, but at only one-sixteenth of an inch, it won’t bother anyone. People seldom see these tiny marine crustaceans, but they may be the…
Read MoreBuff Mussels
These deep-sea mussels were collected on an Alvin dive to the Florida Escarpment in the Gulf of Mexico. This rocky platform, 1.6 miles below the surface, is made of long-dead…
Read MoreWebinar: Sweating the Small Stuff: Impacts of Marine Microplastics
Sweet Hitchhiker
This sea urchin was collected from the ocean floor near the Galapagos Rift. The hitchhiking urchin was found in the basket on the front of the Alvin submersible only after…
Read MoreOcean Termites
Those exploring the wreck of the Titanic have found none of the elaborate woodwork that was the hallmark of the luxury liner’s grand staircase. Any wood that does remain is…
Read MoreConsuming Coral
Gliding on hundreds of tiny suction-cup feet, A Crown-of-thorns sea star roams the reef, consuming immobile corals and leaving bare coral skeleton behind. Common in the Pacific and Indian Oceans…
Read MoreEscorting an Ocean Drone
WHOI Engineer Kevin Manganini escorts a JetYak autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) through the waters off Chappaquidick, which became its own island in 2007 after a storm created an inlet that separated it…
Read MoreHolding the Key
As the oceans become more acidic due to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, marine scientists are studying how organisms, such as the developing squid shown here, respond…
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