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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

blue mud lab

Secrets from the blue mud

September 22, 2025

Microbes survive—and thrive—in caustic fluids venting from the seafloor

gold mines

Gold mining’s toxic legacy

July 24, 2025

Mercury pollution in Colombia’s Amazon threatens the Indigenous way of life

We can’t do this alone

July 1, 2025

For marine chemist Adam Subhas, ocean-climate solutions don’t happen without community

The R/V Acadiana

Looking to the Mighty Mississippi for climate solutions

December 16, 2022

Researchers measure alkalinity flowing into the Gulf of Mexico to assess a carbon dioxide removal strategy

Why Indigenous perspectives matter in the climate conversation

November 21, 2022

Wampanoag Tribal Member Leslie Jonas talks WHOI, Native rights, and a timely partnership

News Releases

USS Arizona provides blueprint for addressing oil leakage at thousands of WWII shipwrecks

October 2, 2025

The findings underscore the USS Arizona’s dual role as a solemn memorial and a “living laboratory.”

Ken Buesseler

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Ken Buesseler receives AGU Honor

September 24, 2025

Buesseler joins a distinguished group of scientists, leaders and communicators recognized by AGU for advancing science.

A new look at an old pollutant

September 2, 2025

A WHOI-led study tracks mercury across the western Pacific

New report highlights plastic pollution as a grave and growing danger to health and announces an independent, health-focused global monitoring system

August 4, 2025

While the impacts of plastic pollution on human health and the environment are growing, the report finds, increasing harm due to plastics is not inevitable.

Award-winning environmental documentary Out of Plain Sight to make Cape Cod debut at the Woods Hole Film Festival

July 17, 2025

Film shares the pivotal role of WHOI-operated underwater vehicles in the discovery of toxic waste dumped off California coast

News & Insights

Shells

Ocean acidification gets a watchful eye in New England aquaculture ‘hot spot’

December 5, 2019

Shellfish aquaculture is thriving in New England, but future growth in the industry could be stunted as coastal waters in the region become more acidic. Researchers at WHOI have developed a way to link nutrient load reductions to improvements in the health of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, which may an important step toward cleaner and less acidic harbors in the Baystate.

Berhard Peucker Ehernbrink

River Detective: WHOI scientist studies river chemistry around the world

October 2, 2019

Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink has been studying rivers around the world as part of the Global Rivers Observatory network to observe how natural and human-caused environmental changes affect the composition of river water over time.

oil spill barge

Fifty years later, the West Falmouth oil spill yields lasting contributions to remediation efforts

September 20, 2019

After 175,000 gallons of oil spilled from a barge that ran aground along West Falmouth Harbor, the contaminant has all but disappeared, save a small marsh inlet that continues to serve as a living laboratory for scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

WHOI in the Christian Science Monitor: How the deep sea could unlock outer space

August 28, 2019

“When hydrothermal vents were discovered in 1977, it very much flipped biology on its end,” says Julie Huber, an oceanographer who studies life in and below the seafloor at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) on Cape Cod. “People knew that organisms could live off of chemical energy, but they didn’t imagine they could support animal ecosystems.”

Scientists like Dr. Huber have continued to study those chemical-munching microbes. And it turns out, she says, a diverse set of microbes can be really good at making a living where the sun doesn’t shine. They make use of the chemicals available to them, even at some of the harshest vents, known as black smokers.

WHOI geochemist Ken Buesseler discusses marine radioactivity monitoring in the Marshall Islands atop Runit Dome

Putting the ‘nuclear coffin’ in perspective

August 27, 2019

WHOI chemist and marine radioactivity expert shares his thoughts about radioactivity waste leaking from Runit Dome—a bomb crater filled with radioactive soil in the Marshall Islands that is now being penetrated by rising sea levels

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