Oceanus Online Archive
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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Will Oxygen in the Ocean Continue to Decline?
The living, breathing ocean may be slowly starting to suffocate. The ocean has lost more than two percent of its oxygen over the past-half century, and oxygen-depleted “dead zones” continue…
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Scientists Reveal Secrets of Whales
Researchers have known for decades that whales create elaborate songs. But a new study has revealed a component of whale songs that has long been overlooked—sort of a booming baseline…
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Long-term Study Focuses on New England Ocean
The National Science Foundation has created a new Long Term Ecological Research site off the New England coast to increase understanding of an area of the ocean known for its abundant marine life and productive commercial fisheries.
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Tiny Jellyfish with a Big Sting
Clinging jellyfish in waters near Vladivostok, Russia, are known for their painful, toxic stings. In the U.S., where clinging jellies had been relatively harmless, a new, venomous variety has recently appeared on Cape Cod, Mass., and in nearby regions. WHOI biologist Annette Govindarajan is using genetic techniques to trace their geographic origins.
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Ocean Observatories Initiative
Sailors and scientists have gone to sea for centuries to unravel the inner workings of the watery region that covers two-thirds of our planet. But they have always had to…
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Aqua Incognita
There is a jar of money in the conference room of the Mooring Operations & Engineering (MOE) team at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. It is a United Nations kaleidoscope of…
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Pinocchio’s Nose
It took only a month for the new Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) to reveal insights about shifting ocean circulation patterns that could have major impacts on marine life and fisheries…
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Thinking Global
The Global Array component of the Ocean Observatories Initiative initially included four remote, high-latitude locations, selected for scientifically strategic reasons: Irminger Sea (60°N, 39°W) WHOI physical oceanographer Bob Pickart has…
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Diving for Data
It’s the middle of the night on Cape Cod, Mass. Thousands of miles away in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina, a bright yellow torpedo-shaped drone floats up…
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The Young Woman and the Sea
Meghan Donohue always wanted a career in oceanography. She earned an undergraduate degree in physical oceanography from the University of San Diego. Then she participated in the Sea Education Association’s…
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