The Sea’s Bounty

A collection of copepods fills a specimen dish to be identified and counted. Scientists on board the research vessel Ka’imikai-o-Kanaloa collected the sample off the northeast coast of Japan in June 2011 in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the coast earlier in the year. The cruise, led by WHOI marine chemist Ken Buesseler, spent two weeks sampling the Pacific for signs of radiation from the damaged nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant. Recent analysis found that the event constituted the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history, but that levels in the copepods, which are food for many larger fish, remain below levels of concern for human health. (Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)