Drops in the Ocean

WHOI technician Arnold Clarke conducts a “hydrographic station” aboard the original WHOI research vessel Atlantis, most likely in the late 1940s. A hydrographic station is a basic operation in oceanography, in which a series of bottles equipped with thermometers are lowered into the ocean to collect temperature data and water samples at various depths. Even today with modern instruments, completing a station takes several hours depending upon the depths to be sampled.(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)