Oceanus Online Archive
Shipwrecks Offer Clues to Ancient Cultures
Brendan Foley hunts for shipwrecks, but he’s not searching for gold or jewels. The sunken treasure he pursues comes not in chests, but mostly in curvaceous clay jars called amphorae—the…
Read MoreDye Sheds Light on Jet-Propelled Salps
The boat loaded, we push off from shore. We are headed out for a nighttime blue-water scuba dive in search of salps off the Pacific coast of Panama. Salps are…
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Ocean Acidification: A Risky Shell Game
A new study has yielded surprising findings about how the shells of marine organisms might stand up to an increasingly acidic ocean in the future. Under very high experimental CO2…
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The Promise and Perils of Seafloor Mining
A year ago, the Canadian mining company Nautilus Minerals was poised to launch a new industry: mining the deep ocean floor. All Nautilus had to do was finish building special…
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Clara Smart
Ask Clara Smart about her interests, and be prepared to receive a formidable list of hobbies and academic pursuits: photography, competitive cycling, knitting, English literature, the ocean, jazz, and robotics.…
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Cara Manning
One of Cara Manning’s hobbies is cooking, which seems compatible for a chemist, right? “Some of my nonscientist friends are convinced that my culinary skills are related to my chemistry…
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Abigail Labella
Abigail Labella sums up her daily life as a biology Summer Student Fellow (SSF) in a single maxim: “When the fish call, you can’t really say no!” Whereas many of…
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Eleanor Bors
While her Oberlin classmates were accepting their diplomas at their graduation ceremony back in Ohio, Eleanor Bors found herself on board the research vessel Kilo Moanaalmost 200 miles off the…
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Rose Kantor
“Being from the Midwest,” said Minneapolis native Rose Kantor, “it had never even crossed my radar to do oceanography.” The biology major from Carleton College applied to a dozen institutions…
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Garrett Mitchell
For Garrett Mitchell, an interest in oceanography arose not in a university classroom but on a surfboard in the waters of California. Living there while taking a few years off…
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Stephanie Chin
Stephanie Chin is most likely the only Summer Student Fellow whose project could one day operate in space—at least in theory. She worked on building a prototype for a biologic…
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Sam Zipper
It might seem strange that Sam Zipper spent his summer on balmy Cape Cod studying the western Canadian Arctic. But for Zipper, examining sediment cores from the Mackenzie River Delta…
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Gar Secrist
Gar Secrist says that he spent his summer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) working on “sandwiches.” His weren’t ordered in from a deli, but rather retrieved from the seafloor.…
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Willy Goldsmith
Willy Goldsmith is a fish guy. At home in Boston and Gloucester, Mass., he is an avid lifelong fisherman. He also works in the ichthyology collections at Harvard University, where…
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A Summer of Science on the Sea
It’s no surprise that the Summer Student Fellowship program at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is one of the most sought-after gigs for undergraduate science majors around the world. It’s…
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Having Their Phosphorus and Eating It Too
Try naming the nutrients you need to be strong and healthy. Chances are phosphorus will be pretty far down the list, if it’s there at all. And yet, you and…
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Voyage to the Remote Phoenix Islands
The Phoenix Islands aren’t obvious on a map—eight scattered coral atolls barely above sea level in the equatorial western Pacific. These specks form the most remote coral island archipelago in…
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Floats Reveal Unknown Ocean Pathways
Oceanographers have long known that the image they used to portray the oceans’ global circulation—called the Ocean Conveyor—was an oversimplification. It’s useful, but akin to describing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as…
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The Hunt for Microbial ‘Trojan Horses’
In summer, Wood Neck Beach in Woods Hole, Mass., teems with tourists, but only a few seagulls kept Matt First company as he walked through the brown-gold marsh grass last…
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In Praise of Postdoctoral Scientists
The large stone fireplace at the Captain Kidd bar in Woods Hole, Mass., provided a warm haven last March for a group of young scientists gathered after a long day…
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