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Steady As She Goes

Steady As She Goes

Able-bodied seaman Scott Loweth steered WHOI’s new research vessel R/V Neil Armstrong through the approach to San Francisco Harbor in November 2015 to complete the first leg of the ship’s inaugural voyage. WHOI has…

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Presenting: Neil Armstrong

Presenting: Neil Armstrong

Carol Armstrong, wife of Naval aviator and the first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, christened the research vessel bearing her husband’s name in 2014. R/V Neil Armstrong…

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Topping it All Off

Topping it All Off

In February, R/V Neil Armstrong spent some time in a shipyard in Charleston, S.C., to have its scientific equipment installed, including a satellite antenna, shown here. Most of its sensors are…

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Early to Rise

Early to Rise

A team aboard R/V Thomas Thompson made an early-morning, fog-shrouded recovery of an MC-800 multicorer off the coast of San Diego this February on a cruise to give early career scientists an…

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Hidden Battles

Hidden Battles

These images, which are CT scans similar to those taken at hospitals of the human body, provide a detailed look inside coral skeletons. The holes were made by bioeroders, small…

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Two Ships

Two Ships

After R/V Knorr (now Rio Tecolutla) departed Woods Hole for the last time earlier in March, the ship headed south to its new home in Mexico. Along the way, off the coast of…

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Life Lessons

Life Lessons

Hydrothermal vents, fissures where minerals dissolved in hot seawater pour out of the seafloor, were discovered in 1977 aboard the submersible Alvin. The amazing variety of organisms that call the…

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Helping Hand

Helping Hand

Personnel transfers on the open ocean are rarely easy, so when a request comes for one it’s usually serious. The Coast Guard received notice recently of a sick crewmember on…

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Something Fishy

Something Fishy

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Katie Pitz is on the hunt for invisible, but dangerous organisms in the tropical ocean. She is conducting research on a microscopic phytoplankton that produce toxins behind ciguatera…

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Watch and Learn

Watch and Learn

Peter Liarikos (foreground), bosun on R/V Neil Armstrong, gets help from a representative of Markey Machinery in learning how to control the ship’s hydro winches and new launch-and-recovery system (LARS). The…

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Vent Value

Vent Value

Humans have known about deep-sea hydrothermal vents only since 1977, when an expedition using the submersible Alvin explored a site in the Pacific along the mid-ocean ridge. Vents have been…

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ROV Jason Upgrade Timelapse

Jason Time Lapse

In 2015, the remotely operated vehicle Jason began a year-long, $2.4 million upgrade that culminated in a complete rebuild of the vehicle during the winter of 2016. The upgrade was…

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Dot in the Ocean

Dot in the Ocean

Jarvis Island is an uninhabited island on the equator in the mid-Pacific Ocean. As trade winds push warm surface waters west across the Pacific, the deep Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) transports…

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Ready for Splashdown

Ready for Splashdown

WHOI’s remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) Jason heads onto the dock in Woods Hole after undergoing a $2.4 million overhaul funded by the National Science Foundation that included a year-long engineering effort and took…

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Golden Globes

Golden Globes

This universe of golden-yellow bubbles is actually a sample of Antarctic marine phytoplankton called Phaeocystis. The tiny yellow dots on each ball are actually individual algal cells forming hollow spherical colonies…

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Fine-scale Measurements

Fine-scale Measurements

Researchers from the University of KwaZulu-Natal watch as a sensor-equipped Slocum Glider takes measurements off the east coast of South Africa. WHOI physical oceanographer Louis St. Laurent is collaborating with…

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Acoustic Eavesdropping

Acoustic Eavesdropping

Coral reefs provide habitat for 25 percent of all marine species, but are facing threats from warmer temperatures and lower pH. WHOI biologist Aran Mooney (above) and Max Kaplan, a…

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Weighting for Alvin

Weighting for Alvin

Alvin can’t carry enough batteries to power its way to the seafloor. Instead, dive preparations include attaching stacks of iron plates to the outside of the sub so it can…

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Changing Arctic

Changing Arctic

WHOI biologist Cabell Davis served as principal scientist on the Elysium Artists for the Arctic Expedition in fall 2015 led by Michael Aw of the Explorers Club to raise public…

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It’s Academic

It's Academic

The WHOI Academic Programs Office hosted a reception for faculty and students, past and present, at this year’s Ocean Sciences Meeting in New Orleans, a biennial conference that attracted more…

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One Last Line

One Last Line

WHOI port engineer Dutch Wegman unmoors the final line on March 15 as R/V Knorr prepared to set sail from Woods Hole for the last time with a crowd of well-wishers…

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A Mountainous Task

A 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…

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