Research Highlights
Oceanus Magazine
In 1985, Cindy Van Dover, then a graduate student in biology in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, discovered a novel light-sensing organ on a unique species of shrimp that lives at high-temperature, black smoker chimneys on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. If this photoreceptor were indeed some sort of primitive “eye,” the question instantly arose: At depths of some 3,600 meters, where sunlight cannot penetrate, what are these shrimp looking at? The search for a source of light in deep-sea hydrothermal environments began.
Four technologies that have been developing separately for some time were brought together this year by WHOI’s Deep Submergence Laboratory (DSL) to serve three very different user communities. With images from the towed vehicle Argo II and the remotely operated vehicle Jason, DSL scientists and engineers created mosaic images of a sunken British cargo ship and 20-meter-tall hydrothermal vent chimneys, both in the Pacific Ocean, and ancient shipwreck sites in the Mediterranean. The three expeditions thus served the marine safety, scientific, and archaeological communities.
News Releases
The findings point to warming ocean temperatures, shifting nutrient regimes, and changing circulation patterns as likely contributors to this emerging basin-scale redistribution of Sargassum.
A distinctive oceanic core complex releasing hot fluids has been identified at a depth of 2,700 meters on the Arctic Ocean’s floor.
Research Associate will complete a project at the National Fisheries and Marine Research Institute in Angola.
Researchers make urgent call for convergent interdisciplinary research to combat worsening crisis
A new expansion of kelpwatch.org, brings over 40 years of satellite-derived kelp canopy data to South Africa and Namibia, offering new insights into these vital underwater forest ecosystems.
News & Insights
NSF program fosters collaboration between indigenous communities and traditional scientists, allowing WHOI’s autonomous vehicles to shed light on a changing Arctic
An investigative report this week in the LA Times features the work of WHOI’s marine geochemistry lab in identifying the discarded barrels and analyzing samples from the discovery.