Oceanus Online Archive
How the Ocean Works
Rising Sea Levels and Moving Shorelines
Changes to the shoreline are inevitable and inescapable. Shoals and sandbars become islands and then sandbars again. Ice sheets grow…
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Ocean & Human Lives
The Growing Problem of Harmful Algae
Harmful algal blooms are natural and they are not new. But ocean scientists are growing concerned that they are now…
Read MoreSustainable Ocean
Introducing…the Asian Oyster
As native oysters decline, officials seek to restore fishery with disease-resistant species “O Oysters,” said the Carpenter, “You’ve had a…
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Ocean Life
Scientists Muster to Help Right Whales
It is a sad irony that we have cataloged individual photographs of the remaining North Atlantic right whales and given…
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Ocean Life
Whither the North Atlantic Right Whale?
“Today only a remnant of the population survives, no more than 350 whales clustered in calving and feeding grounds along…
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Ocean Life
Revealing the Ocean’s Invisible Abundance
Finding minuscule life forms in a seemingly infinite ocean isn’t trivial. But in recent years, oceanographers have been developing new…
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Ocean Life
Shedding Light on Light in the Ocean
Light in the ocean is like light in no other place on Earth. It is a world that is visibly…
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Ocean & Human Lives
Oil in Our Coastal Back Yard
On September 16, 1969, the barge Florida ran aground off Cape Cod, rupturing its hull and spilling 189,000 gallons of…
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How the Ocean Works
Shaping the Beach, One Wave at a Time
For years, scientists who study the shoreline have wondered at the apparent fickleness of storms, which can devastate one part…
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Sustainable Ocean
Down on the Farm…Raising Fish
Aquaculture, or fish farming, is changing how we think about one of our main sources of protein. With many fish…
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Ocean Life
Life in the Arctic Ocean
Capped with a formidable ice and snow cover, plunged into total darkness during the winter, buffeted by blizzard winds,and bitterly…
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Sustainable Ocean
In Tiny Ear Bones, the Life Story of a Giant Bluefin Tuna
The Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, is one of the fastest, most powerful and most beautiful of fish. It is…
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How the Ocean Works
The Deep Ocean Exploration Institute
This may sound like heresy, but for some of us at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the ocean is a bit…
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Ocean Life
The Secret Lives of Fish
“We have found that otoliths of fish born in each of the five natal estuaries had different, unique isotope and…
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Ocean Tech
Realizing the Dreams of da Vinci and Verne
Leonardo da Vinci made the first drawings of a submarine more than 500 years ago, and Jules Verne published 20,000…
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How the Ocean Works
Living Large in Microscopic Nooks
Newly discovered deep-sea microbes rearrange thinking on the evolution of the Eart—and life on it.
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How the Ocean Works
Unique Vehicles for a Unique Environment
For climatologists and physical oceanographers, it is often said that the Arctic is a canary in the environmental coal mine.…
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Ocean Tech
Ears in the Ocean
If you sought to delve into the forces that drive and shape the face of the earth and that distinguish…
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Ocean & Human Lives
Earthshaking Events
When I was still a schoolboy in China, two major earthquakes occurred, about a year apart. They had a profound…
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How the Ocean Works
Mixing Oil and Water
In recent decades scientists have made substantial progress in understanding how oil enters the oceans, what happens to it, and…
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Ocean & Human Lives
Peering into the Crystal Fabric of Rocks
“Rock solid” is an oxymoron, to my way of thinking. Oh, the expression does have some truth in that minuscule,…
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How the Ocean Works
Earth’s Complex Complexion
Even as you read this, Earth’s crust is continually being reborn and recycled in a dynamic process that fundamentally shapes…
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Ocean Life
Is Life Thriving Deep Beneath the Seafloor?
In 1991, scientists aboard the submersible Alvin were in the right spot at the right time to witness something extraordinary.…
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Sustainable Ocean
Which Way Will the Wind Blow?
Wind energy is the fastest-growing sector of the global electric power industry, and several companies have proposed to build large…
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