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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

Bosun Oscar Sisson (left) and WHOI engineers Sean Kelley, Mike Skowronski, and Isaac Vandor deploy the autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry 

Exploring Atlantic seeps

July 8, 2026

AUV Sentry leads the way in mapping and monitoring methane bubbling from the seafloor

Quest was purchased by Shackleton

A once-in-a-generation dive into polar history

July 2, 2026

40 years after helping reveal the Titanic, Alvin returns to the North Atlantic to document two other legendary shipwrecks

Eyes on the deep submarine background

Eyes on the deep

June 26, 2026

How ocean imaging is accelerating the pace of deep-sea discovery

Mar de Plata canyon

Answers from the abyss

June 11, 2026

How new discoveries in the deep could change life at the surface

Alvin and the swordfish

Alvin vs. the swordfish

May 16, 2026

During a 1967 dive off Florida, a startled swordfish rammed the famed submersible Alvin—lodging its sword in the hull and forcing the crew to abort the mission

News Releases

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution receives Seagriculture Innovation Awards

October 5, 2022

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)-led teams earned Gold and Silver Innovation Awards for seaweed solutions projects, presented at the first annual Seagriculture Conference USA 2022 in Portland, Maine.

Human-occupied vehicle Alvin successfully completes science verification

August 23, 2022

After three weeks in the Puerto Rico trench and Mid Cayman Rise, Alvin is certified to return to research with its new max depth of ~4 miles

Human-occupied submersible Alvin makes historic dive

July 21, 2022

World’s most successful research submersible reaches 6,453 meters, its deepest dive ever Woods Hole, MA – Today, the human-occupied submersible Alvin made history when it successfully reached a depth of 6,453 meters (nearly 4 miles) in the Puerto Rico Trench,…

Arc volcanoes are wetter than previously thought, with scientific and economic implications

May 26, 2022

This increased amount of water has broad implications for understanding how Earth’s lower crust forms, how magma erupts through the crust, and how economically important mineral ore deposits form, according to a new paper led by authors from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

Deepest sediment core collected in the Atlantic Ocean

April 21, 2022

A team of scientists, engineers, and ship’s crew on the research vessel Neil Armstrong operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) recently collected a 38-foot-long cylindrical sediment sample from the deepest part of the Puerto Rico Trench, nearly 5 miles below the surface.

News & Insights

WHOI builds bridges with Arctic Indigenous communities

February 10, 2021

NSF program fosters collaboration between indigenous communities and traditional scientists, allowing WHOI’s autonomous vehicles to shed light on a changing Arctic

WHOI-assisted study finds ocean dumping of DDT waste was “sloppy”

October 29, 2020

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.

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