WHOI in the News
UW’s Deborah Kelley publishes atlas of seafloor volcanoes and deep-ocean life
mentions Dan Fornari and Tim Shank
also reprinted in Phys.org
Ship Brings Clues in Mantle to Life’s Origins Up From Ocean’s ‘Lost City’
There’s a New Reason to Save Life in the Deep Ocean
Drilling Deeper Into Ocean Floor in Search for Origins of Life
Drilling Deeper Into Ocean Floor in Search for Origins of Life
Loss of Oxygen in Oceans Detrimental to Marine Life; Scientists Show How Deoxygenation Rapidly Affects Reef Ecosystem
According to Phys.org, Johnson and her team snorkeled down the water, and there they found the peculiar layer of water that has brittle stars and sea urchins, which are uncharacteristically perching on the top of coral reefs as they are usually hiding.
Impact of Hypoxic Ocean Waters on Marine Life
Investigators suggest that loss of oxygen in the global ocean is accelerating due to climate change and excess nutrients, but how sudden deoxygenation events affect tropical marine ecosystems is poorly understood.
Explorer Robert Ballard’s memoir finds shipwrecks and strange life forms in the ocean’s darkest reaches
In the early 1970s, when Ballard was doing his graduate work in marine geology and geophysics, scientists were still refining the basics of plate tectonics theory.
Some open ocean waters teeming with an abundance of life
Since Charles Darwin’s day, the abundance of life on coral reefs has been puzzling, given that most oceanic surface waters in the tropics are low in nutrients and unproductive.
Earth’s oceans may hold the key to finding life beyond our planet
The second vehicle is our Orpheus vehicle, and this is a partnership between JPL and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
How Interconnected Is Life in the Ocean?
To help create better conservation and management plans, researchers are measuring how marine organisms move between habitats and populations.
Ocean Twilight Zone may be key to feeding and protecting life on earth
In the Ocean, a Preview of Life on Enceladus?
features work from a recent expedition to Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Quotes Frieder Klein
Ocean commotion: Protecting sea life from our noise
features Darlene Ketten and mentions WHOI
WATCH: New England-based researchers share rare video from ocean’s ‘Twilight Zone’
What Happens to Marine Life When There Isn’t Enough Oxygen?
In September of 2017, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution postdoctoral scholar Maggie Johnson was conducting an experiment with a colleague in Bocas del Toro off the Caribbean coast of Panama. After sitting on a quiet, warm open ocean, they snorkeled down to find a peculiar layer of murky, foul-smelling water about 10 feet below the surface, with brittle stars and sea urchins, which are usually in hiding, perching on the tops of coral. This unique observation prompted a collaborative study explained in a new paper published on July 26, 2021, in Nature Communications analyzing what this foggy water layer is caused by, and the impact it has on life at the bottom of the seafloor.
Rare, ghostly glass octopus photographed on recent Pacific Ocean expedition
“Expeditions like these teach us why we need to increase our efforts to restore and better understand marine ecosystems everywhere — because the great chain of life that begins in the ocean is critical for human health and well being,” Schmidt said.
‘What we know now is how much we don’t know’: Enter the strange world of the ocean twilight zone
A difficult area to study and often overlooked by science, new technology is aiding its exploration, forcing researchers to re-evaluate just how much life is down there. Researchers now believe there is 10 times, maybe 100 times the biomass previously thought, says Heidi Sosik, senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).