Press Room
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) report in today’s issue of the journal Nature that the population growth rate of North Atlantic Right whales has declined below replacement level because of increased mortality rates of mothers. The population numbers only about 300 and is predicted to become extinct within 200 years if the environmental conditions experienced by the whales in 1995 were maintained.
Two scientists have been recognized by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) for their contributions to ocean sciences research. Drs. Daniel J. Fornari of the Geology and Geophysics Department and Rui Xin Huang of the Physical Oceanography Department have been named recipients of a W. Van Alan Clark Chair for Excellence in Oceanography at the Institution. Each endowed chair brings financial support for a period of five years, allowing the recipient the freedom to pursue a variety of career interests. The awards were announced today during the Institution’s fall meeting of the Board of Trustees and Members of the Corporation and are effective January 1, 2002.
Students from Canada, Slovakia, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago are spending two weeks at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) participating in a research camp focused on coastal environmental research. The students won an international competition to participate in the camp, the first held in the United States.
When the new U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker HEALY departs Tromso, Norway, July 31 for a two-month cruise across the Arctic Ocean, scientists won’t be studying the ice cap but the seafloor far below. Their focus will be the Gakkel Ridge, three miles beneath the ocean surface, the slowest spreading ridge on earth. It is a window into the earth’s interior scientists hope will help fill a gap in their knowledge of how the earth’s crust forms.
Scientists and engineers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues will use a new digital recording tag to study and assess the risk factors of vessel collisions with the endangered Northern right whale. Less than 300 of the whales remain.
Associate Director for Education, Dean of Graduate Studies and Senior Scientist John Farrington of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has been invited to testify July 19 before a Congressional committee on strategies to address sediments contaminated with PCBs and other toxic chemicals. The hearing, before the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, will begin at 9:30 a.m. in. in Room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC.
Senior Scientist Robert Weller will testify July 12 before a joint Congressional hearing on ocean exploration and the development and implementation of coastal and ocean observing systems. The hearing will start at 1 p.m. in Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC.
Citing assistance with a number of highly visible projects and a productive long-term relationship, RADM George Naccara of the U.S. Coast Guard presented the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) with its Public Service Commendation April 24, 2001, during dockside ceremonies at the Group Woods Hole facility. WHOI Director Robert Gagosian and Associate Director For Marine Operations Richard Pittenger accepted the award on behalf of the Institution.
For nearly 25 years, scientists have wondered how giant red-tipped tubeworms and other exotic marine life found at hydrothermal vents on the deep sea floor get from place to place and how long their larva survive in a cold, eternally dark place. Now Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Biologist Lauren Mullineaux and colleagues have helped answer those questions.
Two web sites developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are among the 135 sites nominated in more than two dozen categories for the 5th Annual Webby Awards, called by some A?the Oscars of the Internet.A? The 2001 awards will be presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences July 18 at a ceremony at San FranciscoA?s War Memorial Opera House.
As weather warms in New England and we dream of summer days, a team of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists has headed south to the frigid waters around Antarctica for the first of a series of international cruises to study the distribution and behavior of krill – the major food source for most animals in the Southern Ocean. The eight-member WHOI team is using a variety of new technologies including a remotely operated vehicle to study the small shrimp-like crustaceans that form the base of the food chain for whales, penguins, seals and other marine life.
Scientists exploring a remote area of the central Indian Ocean seafloor two and one-half miles deep have found animals that look like fuzzy snowballs and chimney-like structures two stories tall spewing super-heated water full of toxic metals. The findings, released on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Dive and Discover Web site (http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/) were made at the start of a month-long expedition funded by the National Science Foundation. Images and data from the seafloor may provide critical answers to long standing questions about the diversity of life in the deep sea, how animals move from place to place and how the ocean crust is changing. A Japanese team is reported to have discovered hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean last fall, but little information has been publicly available.
(Woods Hole, MA–3/26/01)A?The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) announces the launch on March 27 of an Internet expedition in the central Indian Ocean called Dive and Discover (www.divediscover.whoi.edu). By following the daily activities and progress of the scientific mission, students and teachers in 22 states and Guam will be among the first to know of scientists’ discoveries at the seafloor in one of Earth’s most remote regions.
Local resident Gratia R. “Topsy” Montgomery of South Dartmouth was honored recently by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) with its prestigious Cecil H. Green Award. The award, named for Texas Instruments’ founder and philanthropist, Cecil H. Green, is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to oceanographic research at the Institution.
WHAT: Research Vessel ATLANTIS and the Deep-Diving Submersible ALVIN will return home to Woods Hole December 15 after a record three and one-half year voyage of exploration and discovery. The ship and sub left Woods Hole June 2, 1997 for an extended voyage in the Atlantic and Pacific. Since then the ship has made 60 legs or separate cruises on Voyage #3 in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and South Pacific as far south as Easter Island. ALVIN, which carries three people nearly 15,000 feet into the ocean and is the nationA?s only deep-diving human occupied submersible, made its first dive south of the Equator during the voyage. The sub will be lifted off the ATLANTIS December 19 and begin a scheduled overhaul, which happens every three years, in dock facilities. R/V ATLANTIS will depart Woods Hole December 27 for a Tampa, FL, shipyard for scheduled maintenance before returning to general oceanographic research cruises in early 2001.
Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered “strong evidence” for current volcanic activity at the Vailulu’u summit east of Samoa.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was honored today by Governor Paul Cellucci as one of 17 employers in the state cited for providing “a wide variety of employment opportunities for workers with disabilities.” The companies honored range from the nation’s largest mutual fund to a family-owned food market and an amusement park. The Institution was nominated for its efforts to help Associate Scientist Amy Bower of the Physical Oceanography Department, who is legally blind.
It wonA?t be just another ship launching when the USNS MARY SEARS rolls down the ways at the Halter Marine Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, October 19. For the first time in its 225-year history, the Navy is naming one of its research vessels for a woman, Mary Sears. A marine biologist, the late Mary Sears was one of the first staff members at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI ) and a guiding force in its development. She remianed on staff for many years and was a Scientist Emeritus at the time of her death in 1997. A WAVE during World War II, she provided intelligence reports predicting the presence of areas of the ocean where submarines could help escape enemy detection.
For the first time in eight years, the Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionA?s Research Vessel Atlantis and deep-diving submersible Alvin will spend the next two weeks investigating gas hydrates, a new potential energy resource, and unusual marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists from a number of universities, government agencies and research laboratories are aboard Atlantis for the expedition, which is scheduled to depart Galveston, Texas, today. The cruise will end in Key West, Florida, on October 31. Fourteen dives are planned during the two-week expedition, including a number of dives in previously unexplored deep waters of the Gulf.
Scientists who fertilized a small patch of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica in 1999 to determine if the iron would stimulate growth of algae that consume carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, say their results show that iron supply does control algal growth during the summer but that the long-term fate of the carbon remains unknown.