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A Good Old Buoy

A member of the WHOI Buoy Group mounts a flashing light on a toroid, or donut-shaped, buoy prior to its deployment in the mid-1960s. The buoy was used to suspend a mooring line that reached to the seafloor. Such moorings carried both oceanographic and meteorological instruments, with current meters mounted on the line and wind and precipitation gauges mounted on the tripod on top of the buoy. Buoy design has evolved over the years to accommodate more sophisticated instruments and longer deployments.(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)