Air Travel at Sea

Soaring above it all, scientist Ralph Stephen transferred via bosun’s cradle from the drilling ship JOIDES Resolution to the R/V Fred H. Moore, in the Atlantic south of Bermuda in 1985. Stephen, now a senior scientist in the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department, was participating in a seismic experiment that was part of the Ocean Drilling Program to learn about the structure of the upper ocean crust. Scientists used airguns aboard the Moore to release acoustic energy into the water, then measured the energy that was transmitted through the crust to seismometers placed in a borehole drilled in the ocean floor.(Photo courtesy of Ralph Stephen, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)