Multimedia Items
Treasure of Information
A rock sample, collected from the Central Indian Ridge, a mountain chain running through the Indian Ocean, sparkles with information. It’s interior is lined with a fine-grained mineral called chalcopyrite as…
Read MoreNo Swimming
A floating piece of ice in the Arctic Ocean matches the shades of white-sand beaches in tropical water, but the temperature would be quite a shock to anyone who was…
Read MorePropelled by the Sinking of Cold, Salty waters
The Great Ocean Conveyor is propelled by the sinking of cold, salty (and therefore denser) waters in the North Atlantic Ocean (blue arrows). That creates a void that pulls warm,…
Read MoreOysters to the Rescue
Excess nitrogen and other nutrients in coastal waters on Cape Cod can lead to algal blooms that deplete oxygen and disturb natural ecosystems. Hauke Kite-Powell is a WHOI Marine Policy Center research…
Read MoreMixing it Up
In WHOI’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFD), scientists study small versions of ocean currents, eddies, and flows. Scientist Claudia Cenedese and graduate students in the Physical Oceanography Department held public…
Read MoreTreecicles
MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Jessie Pearl led a team into the Acushnet Cedar Swamp State Reservation in New Bedford, Mass., recently in search of white cedar trees from which…
Read MorePredator Made of Jelly
Ocean plankton ranges in size from tiny plant-like cells to gelatinous animals that can be almost as long as a bus but with soft, jelly-like bodies. This comb jelly, Ocyropsis…
Read MoreNo Holiday On Ice
It was -22°F in March 2014 when WHOI engineers Kris Newhall (left) and John Kemp landed in a Twin Otter aircraft on an ice floe in the Beaufort Sea. They were…
Read MoreTiny Time Machines
Seafloor sediments are full of tiny shells like these, the remains of single-celled ocean organisms that lived, died, and sank to the ocean bottom, building up in layers over the…
Read MoreBlue Button Drifter
Porpita porpita, also called the blue button jelly, floats at or near the surface of the water and drifts with the wind. This flower-like floater, related to jellyfish, is actually…
Read MoreSharing the Ocean
MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Laura Weber swims past a Caribbean reef shark while working in the Jardines de la Reina (Gardens of the Queens) archipelago in Cuba. She and…
Read MoreFrom the Archives
The original personnel sphere of the human-occupied vehicle Alvin was shaped from a steel plate in 1964 at Lukens Steel Co. in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. That sphere was used until 1973, when engineers…
Read MoreContinental Vision
A bust of Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd stands on the deck of the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic headquarters before the flags of the original Antarctic Treaty nations: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France,…
Read MoreDeep Presence
WHOI biologist Tim Shank (center) and then-MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Santiago Herrera watch live seafloor video from the lab’s Exploration Command Center during a 2013 cruise on the NOAA ship…
Read MoreFrozen Moment
Deck crew of the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy maneuver a plankton net into the waters of the Chukchi Sea during a cruise led by WHOI oceanographer Bob Pickart in May 2014.…
Read MoreA Rosette By Any Other Name
A marine science technician aboard the U.S.Coast Guard Healy pushes a conductivity, temperature, depth (CTD) rosette during a spring 2009 research cruise to study the Bering Sea ecosystem. A CTD is made up of…
Read MoreFrom the Archives
In this 1960 photo, Mary Sears is surrounded by papers and biological samples in her Bigelow Laboratory office. Sears was the first recipient of the original Woman Pioneer in Oceanography…
Read MoreCalling Alvin
Raul Martinez and Allison Heater (both standing) finish preparing Alvin for a dive during the sub’s Science Verification Cruise in March 2014. Martinez and Heater are crewmembers of R/V Atlantis and are also trained to…
Read MoreFrom the Archives
Dave Owen developed an interest in deep-sea photography—then a field in its infancy—early in his career at WHOI. During a cruise to the Mediterranean and Aegean seas aboard the original…
Read MoreArtistic Sensibility
Falmouth High School art teacher Jane Baker and WHOI biologist Becky Gast took 52 art and English students to Provincetown this fall to do what generations of artists and writers…
Read MoreSome Like It Hot
Alvinella pompejana is named after the submersible Alvin and the Roman city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by a volcano. Also known as the Pompeii worm, it can withstand the hottest temperatures of any…
Read MoreTest Drive
On a calm, cold afternoon in January, a team from the Oceanographic Systems Lab at WHOI took a REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle for a test run in Woods Hole…
Read MoreFrom the Archives
Buck Ketchum prepared to deploy a water-sampling bottle in 1970. Ketchum was a leader in the development of biological oceanography—his research provided the basis for understanding productivity in the ocean,…
Read MoreMaking Waves
WHOI geophysicist Jian Lin (right) with summer student Yen Joe Tan observe waves created during a tsunami experiment at Trunk River in Falmouth, Mass. Lin and colleagues have studied earthquakes…
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