News Releases
WHOI Scientists Map and Confirm Origin of Large, Underwater Hydrocarbon Plume in Gulf
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) detected and characterized a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The work presents a forensic snapshot of the plume characteristics in June and is reported in a study appearing in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science.
Read MoreWHOI Announces 2010 Ocean Science Journalism Fellows
Ten writers and multimedia science journalists from the U.S. and Great Britain have been selected to participate in the competitive Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship program. […]
Read MoreThe Salp: Nature’s Near-Perfect Little Engine Just Got Better
What if trains, planes, and automobiles all were powered simply by the air through which they move? Moreover, what if their exhaust and byproducts helped the environment?
Well, such an energy-efficient, self-propelling mechanism already exists in nature. The salp, a smallish, barrel-shaped organism that resembles a kind of streamlined jellyfish, gets everything it needs from the ocean waters to feed and propel itself. And, scientists believe its waste material may actually help remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the upper ocean and the atmosphere.
WHOI To Mark New Lab with Groundbreaking Celebration
Equipped with an $8.1 million federal Recovery Act grant and a shovel, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will celebrate the groundbreaking of its new Laboratory for Ocean Sensors and Observing Systems (LOSOS) at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 4, at the Clark Laboratory on the Institution?s Quissett Campus.
Read MoreExpedition to Mid-Cayman Rise Identifies Unusual Variety of Deep Sea Vents
deep-sea hydrothermal vents Mid-Cayman Rise Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences NASA-funded search extreme environments origins and evolution life
Read MoreWHOI Science Mission to Study Deepwater Horizon Spill Using Mass Spectrometry and AUV Sentry
A multidisciplinary team of investigators from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution embarked June 17 on a twelve-day research effort in the Gulf of Mexico aboard the R/V Endeavor, conducting three simultaneous […]
Read MoreSharks sniff out their prey, one nostril at a time
It turns out the old saying is right — the nose really does know. And when it comes to sharks, the nostrils are particularly discriminating. Combined with the ability to […]
Read MoreWHOI Participates in Meeting Aimed at Finding Solutions to Control or Stop Oil Spill
On June 1, 2010, members of the staff of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) participated in a meeting at the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., to consider […]
Read MoreRevolutionary Communications System Promises New Generation of Untethered, Undersea Vehicles
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) engineers and scientists are employing a combination of new undersea technologies to re-define how we think of tethered, remotely operated vehicles. Using the 11,000 meter-rated Nereus hybrid remotely operated vehicle (HROV) as a test platform, engineers at WHOI recently demonstrated a new system that integrates acoustics with optics. This achievement, they say, opens the way to new opportunities in communications between untethered remotely operated vehicles (UTROVs) and their human operators?literally ?cutting the cord? for undersea exploration.
Read MoreWHOI Scientist Takes Comprehensive Look at Human Impacts on Ocean Chemistry
Numerous studies are documenting the growing effects of climate change, carbon dioxide, pollution and other human-related phenomena on the world?s oceans. But most of those have studied single, isolated sources of pollution and other influences. Now, a marine geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has published a report in the latest issue of the journal Science that evaluates the total impact of such factors on the ocean and considers what the future might hold.
Read MoreWHOI Joins Consortium to Study, Minimize Effects of Gulf Oil Spill
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is partnering with two Louisiana institutions to determine the myriad impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil discharge into the Gulf of Mexico and to devise and implement possible solutions to the disaster.
Read MoreRita Colwell to speak at MIT/WHOI Joint Program Commencement June 5 at WHOI
Rita R. Colwell, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins University and former Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), will give the commencement address June 5 at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to the 2010 graduates of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography and Applied Ocean Sciences and Engineering.
Read MoreWHOI Study Calculates Volume and Depth of the World?s Oceans
How high is the sky? Scientists have a pretty good handle on that one, what with their knowledge of the troposphere, stratosphere an the other ?o-spheres.? Now, thanks to new work headed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), they are closing in on the other half of that age-old query: How deep is the ocean?
Read MoreWHOI’s Amy Bower Wins Unsung Heroine Award
Inspiration can come from unexpected sources. For Amy Bower, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), it was triggered by a mundane-sounding requirement entitled ?Criterion 2,? part of a standard research grant proposal to the National Science Foundation in 2004.
Read MoreWHOI Selected to Operate Newest Navy Research Ship
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has been informed by the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) that it has been selected to operate AGOR 27, one of two […]
Read MoreWHOI scientists find ancient asphalt domes off California coast
They paved paradise and, it turns out, actually did put up a parking lot. A big one. Some 700 feet deep in the waters off California?s jewel of a coastal resort, Santa Barbara, sits a group of football-field-sized asphalt domes unlike any other underwater features known to exist. About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).
James E. Cloern Wins Ketchum Award
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has chosen James E. Cloern, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey for the last 34 years, as the recipient of the 2010 Bostwick H. Ketchum Award.
Read MoreLong-Distance Larvae Speed to New Undersea Vent Homes
Working in a rare, ?natural seafloor laboratory? of hydrothermal vents that had just been rocked by a volcanic eruption, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and other institutions have discovered what they believe is an undersea superhighway carrying tiny life forms unprecedented distances to inhabit the post-eruption site.
Read MoreNow in Broadband: Acoustic Imaging of the Ocean
Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have developed two advanced broadband acoustic systems that they believe could represent the acoustic equivalent of the leap from black-and-white television to high-definition […]
Read MoreWHOI Expertise, Technology, Tapped for Search for Air France Flight 447
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is part of an international sea search operation formed to locate the deep-sea wreck site of Air France Flight 447 and to retrieve the flight recorders from the Airbus A 330.
Read MoreCape Broadband Network to Benefit Woods Hole Institutions
WOODS HOLE, MA—Woods Hole scientists are hailing last week’s announcement of $32 million in federal stimulus funds awarded to the OpenCape Corporation to construct a new broadband network across southeastern […]
Read MorePioneering Deep-Sea Robot Lost at Sea
A pioneering deep-sea exploration robot—one of the first successful submersible vehicles that was both unmanned and untethered to surface ships—was lost at sea Friday, March 5, on a research expedition […]
Read MoreChile Quake Occurred in Zone of “Increased Stress”
The massive, 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile Feb. 27 occurred in an offshore zone that was under increased stress caused by a 1960 quake of magnitude 9.5, according to geologist Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
Read MoreResearchers Issue Outlook for a Significant New England ‘Red Tide’ in 2010
Today, scientists from the NOAA-funded Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX) project issued an outlook for a significant regional bloom of a toxic alga that can cause ‘red tides’ in the […]
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