Oceanus Archives
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.
Read MoreSharks Take ‘Tunnels’ into the Depths
By tagging sharks, WHOI scientists have revealed their surprising behavior.
Read MoreForecasting 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.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreForecasting Future Hurricanes
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.
Read MoreThe Bacteria on Your Beaches
The widespread use of antibiotics is increasing the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria—perhaps into the ocean, too.
Read MoreReassessing Guidelines for Oil Spill Cleanups
A new discovery could change the way officials approach oil spill cleanups.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreMission 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.
Read MoreIndustrial 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 food. Factory ships are already harvesting twilight-zone organisms that migrate between surface waters and the twilight zone. Industry is on the brink of deepening the reach of those fisheries into the midwater, beyond national boundaries where relatively few laws or regulations apply.
Read MoreHow 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.
Read MoreUnearthing 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.
Read MoreLong Island Blue Hole Core
Long Island Blue Hole Core
Read MoreTo 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.
Read MoreTracking 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.
Read MoreWho 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.
Read MoreWill 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…
Read MoreTaking 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,…
Read MoreScientists Reveal Secrets of Whales
Researchers have known for decades that whales create elaborate songs. But a new study has revealed a component of whale…
Read MoreCan 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…
Read MoreA Double Whammy for Corals
Scientists know that gradually rising ocean temperatures can push corals past a threshold and cause them to bleach. But combine…
Read MoreUp 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…
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