Deep-sea musings
Roboticist Gwyneth Packard on the need for ocean exploration today
Harnessing the ocean to power transportation
WHOI scientists are part of a team working to turn seaweed into biofuel
Casting a wider net
The future of a time-honored fishing tradition in Vietnam, through the eyes of award-winning photographer Thien Nguyen Noc
Gold mining’s toxic legacy
Mercury pollution in Colombia’s Amazon threatens the Indigenous way of life
How do you solve a problem like Sargassum?
An important yet prolific seaweed with massive blooms worries scientists
Ancient seas, future insights
WHOI scientists study the paleo record to understand how the ocean will look in a warmer climate
Rising tides, resilient spirits
As surrounding seas surge, a coastal village prepares for what lies ahead
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Our Ocean. Our Planet. Our Future.
Whistle! Chirp! Squeak! What does it mean?
Avatar Alliance Foundation donation helps WHOI researcher decode dolphin communication
We can’t do this alone
For marine chemist Adam Subhas, ocean-climate solutions don’t happen without community
How WHOI helped win World War II
Key innovations that cemented ocean science’s role in national defense
Life at the margins
Scientists investigate the connections between Ghana’s land, air, sea and blue economy through the Ocean Margins Initiative
Grits, storms, and cosmic patience
As storms stall liftoff, Europa Clipper Mission Team member Elizabeth Spiers patiently awaits the biggest mission of her life
New underwater vehicles in development at WHOI
New vehicles will be modeled after WHOI’s iconic remotely operated vehicle, Jason
Learning to see through cloudy waters
How MIT-WHOI student Amy Phung is helping robots accomplish dangerous tasks in murky waters
A rare black seadevil anglerfish sees the light
A viral video shows a denizen of the ocean’s twilight zone making an unusual trip to the surface
Unseen Ocean
Artist Janine Wong and scientist Jing He capture the art of currents in “Submesoscale Soup”
Five marine animals that call shipwrecks home
One man’s sunken ship is another fish’s home? Learn about five species that have evolved to thrive on sunken vessels
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Deep-sea amphipod name inspired by literary masterpiece
Name pays tribute to Cervantes’ Don Quixote and reinforces themes of sweetness and beauty
5 Takeaways for the Ocean from the COP29 Climate Conference
Explore the key outcomes from this year’s UN Climate Conference
Go with the flow
Mike Singleton, relief captain, R/V Neil Armstrong describes the intricate dance of navigating ocean currents during scientific expeditions
A gift for ocean research
Boater and oceanography enthusiast Steven Grossman supports innovative WHOI projects with $10 million donation
Nature’s Language
Using applied math (and chalk) to understand the dynamic ocean
Navigating new waters
The engineering team at the Ocean Observatories Initiative overcomes the hurdles of deploying the coastal pioneer array at a new site
Ocean in Motion
How the ocean’s complex and chaotic physics defines life on our planet
The case for preserving deep-sea biodiversity
WHOI biologist Annette Govindarajan offers her takeaways from the COP16 UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Colombia
An immersive twilight zone exhibit
An ARTECHOUSE and WHOI collaboration in Washington, D.C. is transporting visitors to a hidden layer of the ocean
Seafloor to Surface to Satellite to Shore
The next great leap in our understanding of the earth-ocean system will require us to put our “eyes” and “ears” in the ocean to observe the dynamic processes going on there as they are happening, in real time.
Plugging the Seafloor with CORKs
Hidden beneath the seafloor throughout most of the world’s oceans lies a massive, dynamic plumbing system that is a central component of our planet’s inner workings.
New Coastal Observatory Is Born
The Martha’s Vineyard Observatory will have sensors mounted on two seafloor nodes, at depths of about 5 and 15 meters, respectively, connected to a shore station via a buried cable. Instruments mounted on the nodes will continually monitor mean sea and wave heights, current strengths, seawater turbulence, subsurface sediment movement, sunlight intensity, and the temperature, salinity, and carbon dioxide levels of the ocean?s waters.
Launching the Argo Armada
The Argo program proposes to disperse 3,000 floats, like the one below, throughout the oceans to collect data on oceanic conditions that can be periodically transmitted to shore via satellite.
Putting H2O in the Ocean
A major obstacle impeding our ability to understand many of the earth’s fundamental, ongoing dynamics–quite frankly–has been a dearth of electrical outlets and phone jacks on the seafloor.
Where the Surf Meets the Turf
The gentle lapping of waves on the beach is a metaphor for enduring tranquility. However, the thin zone where the surf meets the turf is one of the most turbulent, complex, fast-moving, constantly changing places on Earth.
ALISS in Wonderland
In 1985, Cindy Van Dover, then a graduate student in biology in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, discovered a novel light-sensing organ on a unique species of shrimp that lives at high-temperature, black smoker chimneys on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. If this photoreceptor were indeed some sort of primitive “eye,” the question instantly arose: At depths of some 3,600 meters, where sunlight cannot penetrate, what are these shrimp looking at? The search for a source of light in deep-sea hydrothermal environments began.
How to Build a Black Smoker Chimney
Diving along the mid-ocean ridge at 21°N on the East Pacific Rise, scientists within the deep submersible Alvin peered through their tiny portholes two decades ago to see an astonishing sight: Clouds of billowing black “smoke” rising rapidly from the tops of tall rocky “chimneys.”
Hitting the Hotspots
The great volcanic mid-ocean ridge system stretches continuously around the globe for 60,000 kilometers, nearly all of it hidden beneath the world’s oceans.
Life on the Seafloor and Elsewhere in the Solar System
The RIDGE program (Ridge Inter-Disciplinary Globe Experiments) was sharply focused on the global spreading center system, but the program’s goals were broadly defined. RIDGE was designed to explore the causes, consequences, and linkages associated with the physical, chemical, and biological processes that transfer mass and energy from the interior to the surface of the planet along the mid-ocean ridges.
Deep-Sea Diaspora
When spectacular biological communities were first discovered at hydrothermal vents in 1977, biologists puzzled over two main questions: How did these oases of large and abundant animals persist in the deep sea, where food is typically scarce? And how did these unusual species, which occur only at vents, manage to colonize new vents and avoid extinction when old vents shut down?