How shipwrecks helped a cold-water anemone move south
Researchers find fluffy anemones spreading south via shipwrecks, revealing how artificial reefs and ocean currents connect marine habitats
WHOI joins Manresa Wilds Project to help restore part of Connecticut’s coastline
Development of a new coastal green space and public park opens up access to ocean science in Long Island Sound
Recipe: Roasted peppers with smoked mackerel, mace, and mint
This seafood recipe by chef and author Barton Seaver is a great introduction to sustainable seafood
Sampling Gulf Stream plankton, one teaspoon at a time
Three questions with marine research technician Emily Peacock
These seabirds fly toward cyclones, not away from them
New GPS tracking on petrels reveals a surprising survival strategy hidden in the eye of the storm
Are big spills the main source of ocean oil?
Evidence shows that smaller leaks on land contribute far more oil to our oceans
Reclaiming knowledge from the sea
Jordan Kennedy combines Indigenous knowledge, engineering, and observation to rethink how coastal landscapes are studied and restored. Her work on clam gardens and autonomous mapping systems explores how revitalizing these ancient systems can also reclaim knowledge and relationships between people, place, and practice.
3 questions with a former NASA astronaut
WHOI Corporation Member Sunita Williams discusses space exploration, ocean science, and environmental stewardship
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Ships in the Strait of Hormuz are becoming invasive species breeding grounds
Beneath the waterline of every ship stalled in the Persian Gulf, a thriving underwater city takes shape—barnacles, algae, mussels, sea squirts. Some of those hitchhikers could reach coastlines they’d never find on their own.
Is the ocean carbon sink at risk of faltering?
WHOI scientists explain how the ocean mitigates climate change—and could be compromised by it
3 questions with Cam Braun
Marine biologist Camrin Braun explains why the world’s largest fish visit waters off Cape Cod—and what their epic migrations reveal about a changing ocean
Is underwater noise from construction affecting the American Lobster?
WHOI’s Sensory Ecology Lab investigates whether an industrialized soundscape impacts the health of a New England icon
Exploring Atlantic seeps
AUV Sentry leads the way in mapping and monitoring methane bubbling from the seafloor
A once-in-a-generation dive into polar history
40 years after helping reveal the Titanic, Alvin returns to the North Atlantic to document two other legendary shipwrecks
A hadal zone mystery solved
An upside-down swimming isopod shows how tightly we are connected to the deep ocean
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A mother seal dives
Follow a Weddell seal as her body adapts to foraging in deep, frigid waters
A mummy, a myth, and the Titanic
A 1986 handwritten letter to Bob Ballard revisits one of the Titanic disaster’s strangest myths
Turning motion into power: Wave energy converters for sustainable ocean monitoring
In the rapidly evolving world of ocean technology, wave energy is emerging as a promising…
The world’s most abundant fish once thrived in an extreme climate
Fossilized teeth show bristlemouth fish evolved during one of the ocean’s hottest periods
How a cargo ship is tracking hidden ocean life in the Atlantic
With funding support from CMA CGM, ocean observations aboard Bermuda Container Line’s M/V Oleander now include a window into microscopic life
Alvin vs. the swordfish
During a 1967 dive off Florida, a startled swordfish rammed the famed submersible Alvin—lodging its sword in the hull and forcing the crew to abort the mission
Inside Room 71: WHOI history in seven artifacts
Some of the technology, art, and gifts that tell the story of the institution’s early days
A scientist’s quest to find Earth’s oldest ice
After recovering ice that dates back 6 million years, Sarah Shackleton hopes to dig deeper into Earth’s history from a remote Antarctic moraine
It’s the most ocean-friendly map ever created. Why haven’t more people seen it?
Discover the Spilhaus Projection, a radical world map that reveals Earth as one connected ocean—and reshapes how we see the planet.
Luxury cruises with a side of climate science
A new partnership gives scientists rare access to remote Antarctic glaciers—and a new way to engage the public
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?
The Cauldron Beneath the Seafloor
Just over 20 years ago, scientists exploring the mid-ocean ridge system first made the spectacular discovery of black smokers—hydrothermal chimneys made of metal sulfide minerals that vigorously discharge hot, dark, particulate-laden fluids into the ocean.
“Nothing Could Diminish the Excitement Of Seeing the Animals for the First Time”
The scientists who made the surprising discovery of teeming life around hydrothermal vents of the Galápagos Rift in 1977 were geologists and geochemists. They had not expected to find spectacular colonies of previously unknown, large animals on the deep seafloor.
The Big MELT
More than 95 percent of the earth’s volcanic magma is generated beneath the seafloor at mid-ocean ridges.
Mid-Atlantic Ridge Volcanic Processes
Long before the plate-tectonic revolution began in the 1960s, scientists envisioned drilling into the ocean crust to investigate Earth’s evolution.
Indian Ocean’s Atlantis Bank Yields Deep-Earth Insight
I never imagined I would spend six weeks of my life “wandering around” the seafloor exploring an 11 million year old beach, and it never occurred to me to look for a fossil island. But that’s what I did, and that’s what we found on two research voyages separated by more than a decade.