Ecosystems
What Brings the Food that Brings the Whales?
Watching the gray, pitching ocean from the beach in Barrow, Alaska, Carin Ashjian, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), wonders if the seas are too rough for the…
A Mysterious Disease Is Infecting Northeast Clam Beds
Scientists follow clues to the mysterious disease that is killing off clams on Cape Cod…
Cold Comfort for Barnacles
A WHOI research team reports that barnacle larvae can remain frozen up to seven weeks…
Settling on the Seafloor
People may search for a long time, but they know it when they see it—the…
On the Seafloor, a Parade of Roses
Third generation of scientists finds third generation of hydrothermal vent sites.
Voyages into the Antarctic Winter
At the extreme ends of the Earth, Antarctica is a vast, rocky continent, mostly ice-covered…
Big Trouble from Little Squirts
Welcome to the online version of Oceanus, the magazine that explores Earth's last frontier. Oceanus…
The Coastal Ocean Institute
We are all stewards of the coastal ocean. For some of us, the connection to…
Rites of Passage for Juvenile Marine Life
The childhood of a barnacle is fraught with challenges. It hatches in shallow waters close…
Life in the Arctic Ocean
Capped with a formidable ice and snow cover, plunged into total darkness during the winter,…
The Evolutionary Puzzle of Seafloor Life
Most of Earth's crust is manufactured at the bottom of the sea. Deep beneath the…
ALISS in Wonderland
In 1985, Cindy Van Dover, then a graduate student in biology in the MIT/WHOI Joint…
Deep-Sea Diaspora
When spectacular biological communities were first discovered at hydrothermal vents in 1977, biologists puzzled over…
Marine Snow and Fecal Pellets
Until about 130 years ago, scholars believed that no life could exist in the deep…