Multimedia Items
Photosynthesis process featuring its light and dark stages
WHOI biologist Sam Laney studies the daily lives of single-celled plants in the ocean known as phytoplankton. The organisms carry out photosynthesis within specialized organelles called chloroplasts, which contain the […]
Read MorePlates Collide
When two plates carrying continents collide, the continental crust buckles and rocks pile up, creating towering mountain ranges. The Himalayas were born when the Indian subcontinent smashed into Asia 45 […]
Read MorePlates Separate
The Mid-Ocean Ridge and rift valleys, such as the one that runs through eastern Africa, occur along boundaries where plates are spreading apart. New oceanic crust is created as the […]
Read MorePlates Slide
Plates grinding past each other in opposite directions create faults called transform faults. Powerful earthquakes often strike along these boundaries. The San Andreas Fault is a transform plate boundary that […]
Read MorePlates Subduct
When an ocean plate collides with another ocean plate or with a plate carrying continents, one plate will bend and slide under the other. This process is called subduction. A […]
Read MoreProcess showing how methane is derived from photosynthetic bacteria
An enduring ocean mystery may finally be solved. For decades, scientists have known that the oceans surface waters are full of methane gas. But they didn’t know where it came […]
Read MoreA Krill’s Life Cycle
A KRILL’S LIFECYCLE—Krill start life as eggs that sink and hatch in spring. They develop through larval stages as they swim back to the surface, reaching the fourth (furcilia) stage […]
Read MoreRainfall prediction illustration
Top: Winds evaporate water from the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean, leaving behind high levels of salinity during the spring. The exported moisture makes its way to the African Sahel, where […]
Read MoreRecent Past and Near-Future Sea Level Rise Rates
From Special Report: Understanding Sea Level Rise. (Illustration by Eric S. Taylor, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Read MoreRidge Crest Processes
Ridge Crest processes. (Illustration by Jayne Doucette, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Read MoreRidge Microbial Processes
Ridge Microbial processes. (Illustration by Jayne Doucette, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Read MoreRight whale detection mooring operation
Hydrophones on mooring lines could detect whale sounds but frequently it is too noisy. The problem was that in often violent seas, surface buoys moved up and down, pulling the […]
Read MoreRopeless fishing technology to release a trap line entangling a right whale
WHOI engineers have developed a patent-pending ropeless technology that uses an acoustic signal to release a line from a trap. Engineers have completed onshore testing of the prototype hardware with […]
Read MoreSatellite image showing Pinocchio’s Nose warm water intrusion along the Shelf
In 2014, satellite imagery revealed an elongated body of warm Gulf Stream water pushing onto the edge of New England’s continental shelf toward the southwest. Scientists have seen similiar phenomena […]
Read MoreScale depicting the concentration of pH and examples of solutions
The pH scale, shown here, indicates the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in a liquid. Above pH7, a fluid is alkaline; below 7, it is acidic. Seawater is slightly alkaline, […]
Read MoreScallop Life Cycle being affected by ocean acidification
Atlantic sea scallops are a $500 million annual industry, but WHOI scientists believe they may be in danger. A new model developed by WHOI researcher Jennie Rheuban suggests that as […]
Read MoreSchematic illustration of ground water cycle
Water flowing through aquifers back to the ocean is part of Earths water cycle that people often overlook, said WHOI scientist Matt Charette of the Coastal Groundwater Geochemistry Lab, because […]
Read MoreMethods for data collection under and on the world’s oceans
Methods for data collection under and on the world’s oceans. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Read MoreMicrobial “Trojan horses” stages
Ingested, but not digested.
Stages: 1) A unicellular organism, or protist, uses hairlike cilia to push assorted bacteria into its oral groove. Ingested bacteria are collected in food vacuoles— specialized […]
Microbial Life Tree
A COMPLEX TREE OF LIFE—Microbes are living archives of Earth’s evolutionary history. The discovery of a great variety of deep-sea microorganisms (using diverse metabolic strategies to live in diverse habitats) […]
Read MoreMicroplastics breaking down in different areas of the environment
Currently, little is known about when and where larger plastics break down in the environment to form microplastics. A common perception is that most of the fragmentation occurs in the […]
Read MoreMicroplastics in the Food Chain illustration
Plastics that get into the ocean often degrade into microplastics that are ingested by fish and shellfish and can go up the food chain to be ingested by humans. (Illustration […]
Read MoreMid-Ocean Ridges: Magnetics and Polarity, featuring seafloor spreading
How Fast is the Mid-Ocean Ridge Spreading? (Illustration by Natalie Renier, © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Read MoreMonsoon circulation cycle
Used in Oceanus magazine, Vol. 53, No. 2, pg. 40.
Image Of the Day caption:
WHOI scientists are working in the Indian Ocean to gain new insights into forecasting monsoons, […]