Tools & Technology
What Could a Tsunami Network Look Like in the Future?
The Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting (DART) system is battle-tested and operational, so it makes sense to use such buoys to address the immediate need for a tsunami network. Researchers at WHOI are concentrating on the next generation of multidisciplinary ocean observing platforms.
Read MoreHistory of WHOI Ships
Robo-Sailors
In the mid-1990s, the Navy began funding research for small, robotic vehicles to perform unmanned reconnaissance in coastal waters. At WHOI, that helped spark the development of REMUS (Remote Environmental Monitoring UnitS), designed and built by Chris von Alt, Ben Allen, and colleagues in the Oceanographic Systems Laboratory.
Read MoreThe Cacophony on the Coast
Unlike light, sound travels efficiently through water, and the Navy uses sound to monitor what’s going on in the ocean. To understand the sound messages transmitted through the seas, you need to understand the medium through which they are transmitted.
Read MoreThe New Wave of Coastal Ocean Observing
Estuaries are the borderlands between salt and freshwater environments, and they are incredibly diverse both biologically and physically. The diversity and the high energy of the ecosystem make estuaries remarkably resilient. With a better understanding of these systems, we can reverse
their decline and restore the ecological richness of these valuable, albeit muddy, environments.
Read MoreTsunami Warning Buoy Deployed off Chile
Scientists from the Chilean Navy Hydrographic and Oceanographic Office (SHOA), in cooperation with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), deployed…
Read MorePhoning Home from the Ocean Floor – by Computer
Oceanographers will soon be able to sit in their labs ashore and communicate with instruments in the water at ocean…
Read MoreRealizing the Dreams of da Vinci and Verne
Leonardo da Vinci made the first drawings of a submarine more than 500 years ago, and Jules Verne published 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1875. But only in the past few decades has the dizzying pace of technological advances allowed us to realize their dreams of exploring the ocean depths and taking humans to the seafloor.
Read MoreUnique Vehicles for a Unique Environment
For climatologists and physical oceanographers, it is often said that the Arctic is a canary in the environmental coal mine. In the isolated Arctic Ocean Basin, a variety of oceanographic and other processes have conspired to create a layer of cold, salty water called a halocline, which shields the sea ice from underlying warmer waters that would otherwise melt it.
Read MoreDeeper-Diving Human Occupied Submersible to Replace Alvin
Arlington, VA –After 40 years of scientific research that led to the discovery of new life forms, helped confirm the…
Read MoreTransmitting Sound Energy
The SOFAR channel efficiently transmits sound energy in the ocean. By Deborah K. Smith :: Originally published online August 3,…
Read MoreEars in the Ocean
If you sought to delve into the forces that drive and shape the face of the earth and that distinguish it from all other planets in our solar system, you would shine a spotlight on the mid-ocean ridges.
Read MoreWHOI Launches Coastal Vessel Tioga
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s new 60-foot coastal research vessel (CRV) Tioga was christened and launched March 29, 2004 in ceremonies at Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation in Somerset, MA.
Read MoreOcean Observatories: A Presence in the Ocean 24/7
The growing number of ocean observatories in both coastal and deep waters around the country are providing scientists with a…
Read MoreSeeding the Seafloor with Observatories
Scientists extend their reach into the deep with pioneering undersea cable networks
H2O (Hawaii-2 Observatory) – In 1998, scientists used the remotely operated vehicles (ROV) Jason and Medea to create the pioneering long-term seafloor observatory called H2O (Hawaii-2 Observatory). They spliced an abandoned submarine telephone cable into a termination frame. The frame relays power and communications to a junction box, which serves as an electrical outlet for scientific instruments.
New Hybrid Vehicle Will Enable U.S. Scientists to Reach Deepest Parts of the World Ocean Floor
For the first time since 1960, US scientists will be able to explore the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, up to seven miles below the surface, with a novel underwater vehicle capable of performing multiple tasks in extreme conditions. Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) are developing a battery-powered underwater robot to enable scientists to explore the ocean’s most remote regions up to 11,000 meters (36,000-feet) deep.
Read MoreGeological Tool Helps Scientists Map the Interior of the Ocean
A new application of a decades-old technique to study Earth’s interior is allowing scientists “see” the layers in the ocean, providing new insight on the structure of ocean currents, eddies and mixing processes. The findings, reported in this week’s Science by a team from the University of Wyoming and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), could be a major step forward in the ability to remotely survey the interior of the ocean.
Read MoreNew Imaging Vehicle Maps Coral Reefs to Determine Health of Reef and Fisheries
Deepwater coral reefs in the US Virgin Islands may occupy a much larger area and be in better health than previously thought, based on evidence gathered by a new autonomous underwater vehicle which flies through the sea like a helicopter.
Read MoreConstruction Begins on WHOI’s New Coastal Vessel
With the press of a computer button and the plasma cutting of a sheet of aluminum, construction began earlier this month on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI) new 60-foot coastal vessel at Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding, Duclos Corporation in Somerset, MA. The $1.6 million vessel is scheduled for delivery in March 2004.
Read MoreOffshore Air-Sea Interaction Tower Expands Research Capabilities of the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and their colleagues will gain critical environmental information from the Air-Sea Interaction Tower (ASIT) being built off the south shore of Martha’s Vineyard. Construction of the tripod-shaped tower began in August and is expected to be completed in late September. The tower will be linked to the Institution’s Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO), which was built and installed several years ago off South Beach near the Katama Airfield.
Read MoreNEPTUNE: A Fiber-Optic ‘Telescope’ to Inner Space
NEPTUNE is a proposed system of high-speed fiber- optic submarine cables linking a series of seafloor nodes supporting thousands of assorted measuring instruments, video equipment, and robotic vehicles that could upload power and download data at undersea docks. Unlike conventional telephone cables, which supply power from shore in a straight line, end to end, NEPTUNE would operate like a power grid, distributing power simultaneously and as needed throughout the network. Working much like a campus data network (with nodes analogous to buildings and each instrument like a workstation), NEPTUNE would provide real-time transmission of data and two-way communications.
Read MoreSeafloor to Surface to Satellite to Shore
The next great leap in our understanding of the earth-ocean system will require us to put our “eyes” and “ears” in the ocean to observe the dynamic processes going on there as they are happening, in real time.
Read MorePlugging the Seafloor with CORKs
Hidden beneath the seafloor throughout most of the world’s oceans lies a massive, dynamic plumbing system that is a central component of our planet’s inner workings.
Read MoreNew Coastal Observatory Is Born
The Martha’s Vineyard Observatory will have sensors mounted on two seafloor nodes, at depths of about 5 and 15 meters, respectively, connected to a shore station via a buried cable. Instruments mounted on the nodes will continually monitor mean sea and wave heights, current strengths, seawater turbulence, subsurface sediment movement, sunlight intensity, and the temperature, salinity, and carbon dioxide levels of the ocean?s waters.
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