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Early days

Atlantis—the first Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution research vessel—departs the dock in July of 1947. This early cruise to Bikini Atoll yielded sediment cores from Henry Stetson’s coring device, echosounder profiles of both the abyssal plain and the mid-ocean ridge‘s spectacular peaks, a quarter-ton of volcanic rock from the dredge, and using a ton of TNT, extensive seismic records, including the first made while under way rather than on station.
(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)