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A Day at the Beach

In April, Coastal Ocean Institute director Chris Reddy returned to the Gulf of Mexico with research assistant Catherine Carmichael (above). The pair visited several beaches around the Gulf to collect samples of  tar balls caused by last year’s blowout of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Back in Woods Hole, Reddy, Carmichael, and their colleagues will submit their samples to a variety of tests to determine the origin of the oil and the changes it has undergone since being released into the ocean. (Photo by Chris Reddy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)