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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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…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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