Oceanus Online Archive
Life at the Edge
What makes the shelf break front such a productive and diverse part of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean? A group of scientists on the research vessel Neil Armstrong spent two weeks at sea in 2018 as part of a three-year, NSF-funded project to find out.
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A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Ocean
Like someone monitoring the traffic flow on a road system, MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Sam Levang is examining the flow of the ocean’s global circulation, which has big impacts of our climate.
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Sharks Take ‘Tunnels’ into the Depths
By tagging sharks, WHOI scientists have revealed their surprising behavior.
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Forecasting Where Ocean Life Thrives
The ocean, like the atmosphere, has “fronts,” and it’s hardly quiet on them. In fact, that is where the plankton that provide the foundation of the ocean food web are most prolific.
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A Change Has Come in the Arctic
On a long voyage across the Arctic Ocean, an MIT-WHOI graduate students finds chemical clues that climate change has already had impacts on the region.
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The Discovery of Hydrothermal Vents
In 1977, WHOI scientists made a discovery that revolutionized our understanding of how and where life could exist on Earth and other planetary bodies.
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Students Get Their Sea Legs
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is known for its ocean-going research. But some incoming graduate students in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program may never have set foot a large research ship before. A new orientation cruise aboard the research vessel Neil Armstrong is introducing students to shipboard life and oceanographic research.
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The Bacteria on Your Beaches
The widespread use of antibiotics is increasing the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria—perhaps into the ocean, too.
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A Long Trail of Clues Leads to a Surprise About Oil Spills
Scientists followed evidence from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill to discover an unexpected phenomenon.
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Reassessing Guidelines for Oil Spill Cleanups
A new discovery could change the way officials approach oil spill cleanups.
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Mission to the Ocean Twilight Zone
The twilight zone is a part of the ocean 660 to 3,300 feet below the surface, where little sunlight can reach. It is deep and dark and cold, and the pressures there are enormous. Despite these challenging conditions, the twilight zone teems with life that helps support the ocean’s food web and is intertwined with Earth’s climate. Some countries are gearing up to exploit twilight zone fisheries, with unknown impacts for marine ecosystems and global climate. Scientists and engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are poised to explore and investigate this hidden frontier.
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Industrial krill fishing
The twilight zone’s biological abundance makes it an attractive target for commercial fishing operations and a potential source of life-sustaining protein to support growing human populations and the demand for…
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How Is the Seafloor Made?
An ultrasound for the Earth? Using sound waves, a graduate student peers into the crystalline texture of the tectonic plates that cover our planet’s surface.
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Unearthing Long-Gone Hurricanes
A graduate student at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution tracks a trail of clues left behind on the seafloor by hurricanes as they stream across the ocean.
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To Track an Oil Spill
WHOI scientists are helping to develop a robotic underwater vehicle that can track oil spills and help responders mitigate damage in remote or ice-covered areas such as the Arctic Ocean and the Great Lakes.
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Tracking Unexploded Munitions
U.S. coastlines still have a lot of unexploded ordnance, or UXOs, left offshore by military exercises in the 1940s and 1950s. WHOI scientist Peter Traykovski is investigating where UXOs are and how they are moved and buried along the coast.
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Who Grows There?
Biofouling organisms—barnacles, tunicates, bryozoans, and other marine invertebrates—are a common sight on docks, ship hulls, rocks, and other hard underwater surfaces. WHOI postdoctoral scholar Kirstin Meyer has been studying the fouling community in coastal waters of Woods Hole, Mass., to assess how it develops and changes over time. Her preliminary results suggest that both water temperature and competition play a key role in driving community composition.
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Up in the Sky!
Nope, it’s not a bird or a plane. It’s a drone on a scientific mission to restore a river long impaired by dams and to help bring back populations of…
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Re-envisioning Underwater Imaging
A revolutionary new underwater imaging system developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution can generate ultrahigh-definition television video, 2-D mosaic images, and 3-D optical models—images that scientists can spin to view from…
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A Double Whammy for Corals
Scientists know that gradually rising ocean temperatures can push corals past a threshold and cause them to bleach. But combine this chronic stress with an acute short-term weather shift, and…
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Taking Earth’s Inner Temperature
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution wasn’t an obvious fit for Emily Sarafian. “I always felt a little out of place here, because I don’t study the ocean, really,” said Sarafian, a…
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Can Clams and Oysters Help Clean Up Waterways?
Towns in Cape Cod are looking to shellfish not only as culinary treats, but as a way to help clean up waters suffering from excess nitrogen. Nitrogen is an essential…
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