Research Highlights
Oceanus Magazine
Sarah Das calls herself a “frozen oceanographer.” Most people look at Greenland and see a vast ice sheet covering Earth’s largest island. But Das sees a huge reservoir of water—temporarily removed from the ocean and solidified on land. The Greenland…
WHOI geochemist Stan Hart and colleagues have discovered a fast-growing volcano, dubbed Nafanua, inside the crater of Vailulu’u, a 14-300-foot active volcano that should begin the next island in the Samoan chain. They also found a novel hydrothermal community, which they named “Eel City,” and a lifeless zone in the caldera, which they call the “Crater of Death.”
?The Danube River Delta is like the Everglades,? said Liviu Giosan, who grew up near the Romanian wetlands. The triangle-shaped, sediment-rich region at the mouth of the Danube River is also rich with human history. A traditional maritime culture persists on the delta, and the United Nations has declared the region a World Heritage site. The Danube Delta is also a great place for a geologist to study how the coast stretches, contracts, and undulates with time?and human interference.
Senior Scientist Stanley Hart of the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the oldest learned societies in the nation.
‘Virtual’ chief scientist directs a research cruise without leaving land.
News Releases
Study of Gofar transform fault on the Pacific seafloor points to mitigating effects of “barrier zones” that keep ruptures from spreading.
A new study suggests Jupiter’s icy moon lacks geophysical activity, changing how scientists think about life there
Researchers use vanadium isotopes to track the rise of oxygen in ancient seas
The Investigating Ocean Worlds project will seek to improve the analysis of data related to carbon-rich molecules that could be an indicator of biological activity.
This is the most significant discovery to date for COLDEX, an NSF Science and Technology Center funded in 2021 to explore the Antarctic ice sheet, which is the largest ice mass on the planet.
News & Insights
First-of-its-kind research expedition studies massive freshwater aquifer under the ocean floor off Cape Cod
This week, NASA’s Perseverance Rover lands on Mars to continue the search for life on the Red Planet. At the same time, WHOI scientists and engineers are applying their experience exploring the deepest parts of planet Earth to the quest…
As glaciers melt at unprecedented rates, WHOI’s Simon Pendleton is looking back to historical records to predict whether this new cool runoff will slow ocean circulation and cool the northern hemisphere––findings which could mean adjustments to some climate predictions.
WHOI looks back at the legacy of co-founder of MIT-WHOI Joint Program, former Director of Research and Provost at WHOI, Art Maxwell
As I reached the end of April, I realized that too much of my time was getting consumed by zoom calls and email in a bid to over-compensate for not being able to interact with people on-site at WHOI. So…