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Good Omen

Good 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…

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Coral in a Warming World

Coral 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…

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Sign of Stress

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…

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Mighty Mites

Mighty 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…

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Buff Mussels

Buff 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…

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Sweet Hitchhiker

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…

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Ocean Termites

Ocean 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…

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Consuming Coral

Consuming 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…

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Escorting an Ocean Drone

Escorting 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…

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Holding the Key

Holding 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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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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DNA Detective

DNA Detective

Genetic material in seawater provides WHOI biologist Annette Govindarajan with clues to investigate species in the ocean twilight zone. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

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Bon Voyage

Bon Voyage

WHOI computer tech BL Owens waves goodbye to the schooner Corwith Cramer as it leaves its Woods Hole dock with her husband Breck Owens in June 2007. The week-long cruise,…

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Science Scaffolding

Science Scaffolding

Dongsha Atoll is a remote coral reef ecosystem in the South China Sea, about two meters below sea level. With no solid ground from which to work, researchers from Anne…

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Jumping in

Jumping in

A plucky Adelie penguin clears a meltwater stream stained brown by the acres of guano it has trickled through. “The Adelie is this really tough little character that doesn’t have…

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Hermit

Hermit

WHOI paleoclimatologist Konrad Hughen snapped this photo of a hermit crab during a 2015 expedition to the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Hughen studies climate change by looking at…

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Marine fireworks

Marine fireworks

A siphonophore, which is closely related to the medusae. These animals are made up of multiple units, each specialized for a function like swimming, feeding, or reproduction. This “modular” construction…

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Blending Right In

Blending Right In

WHOI geologist Konrad Hughen took this photo during a 2015 expedition to conduct coral reef surveys and obtain coral core samples on several reefs within the Chagos Archipelago, a small…

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Floating Our Boat

Floating Our Boat

In a sign that the current maintenance period for the research vessel Atlantis is almost completed, yard workers at the Mares Island Naval Ship Yard recently flooded the drydock where they…

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Seafloor Up Close

Seafloor Up Close

Molly Anderson, a master’s student at Boise State University, takes a close look at the inside of a piece of basalt recently recovered from the seafloor by the human-occupied submersible Alvin.…

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March of the Juveniles

March of the Juveniles

Emperor penguin chicks hatch into the frozen world of Antarctica—one of Earth’s most inhospitable places. A recent study reveals what the juveniles do in the critical early months when they…

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It’s a Group Thing

It's a Group Thing

WHOI researcher Amy Van Cise and Annie Gorgone of the Cascadia Research Collective photograph pilot whales during field work in the Hawaiian Islands. The study found that short-finned pilot whales…

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