Earning Her Sea Legs

On occasion, non-scientists at WHOI earn valuable at-sea experience by volunteering aboard a research vessel. Here, Sarah Xander, an administrative associate in the Physical Oceanography Department, extracts a water sample from a CTD rosette while working aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer earlier this year. Principal Investigator Ruth Curry invited Xander to learn about the science behind the field work during a DynAMITE (Dynamics of Abyssal Mixing and Interior Transport Experiment) cruise, a long-term study to investigate water mass transformation and circulation in the deep basins (below 3,000 meters) of the western Atlantic.(Photo by George Tupper, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)