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Towing a Trawl

This large trawl net was deployed from the research vessel Tansei Maru off the coast of Japan to collect large zooplankton, small fish, crustaceans, and squid at middle depths of the open ocean. The V-shaped metal piece keeps the mouth of the net open as it moves through the water. Steve Pike, from the lab of WHOI chemist Ken Buesseler, and WHOI coring technician Christopher Griner were part of the expedition in May 2012 led by Jun Nishikawa of the University of Tokyo to track and analyze radionuclides released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. (Photo by Christopher Griner, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)