Multimedia Items
Bowlers touring WHOI
High-school students tour the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility (NOSAMS) lab as WHOI research specialist Ann McNichol (center) explains how a carbon sample is extracted from a variety…
Read MoreLunchtime, with bears
Polar Discovery photographer Chris Linder was just about to eat lunch aboard the Swedish research vessel Oden in the Arctic Ocean, when polar bears were sighted and he ran for…
Read MoreThe vertical life
Red Sea coral communities thrive on vertical walls at the reef’s edge, where individual coral colonies compete for access to sunlight and food-carrying currents. The shapes of the colonies change…
Read MoreOn the march
Huge sand dunes aren’t found only in deserts. These massive dunes (note people for scale) are bearing down on a coastal town in equatorial Brazil. WHOI scientist Ilya Buynevich, from…
Read MoreSearching for snapper fish
MIT/WHOI Joint Program graduate student Kelton McMahon (front) and WHOI research assistant Leah Houghton enter a large underwater cavern on a Red Sea coral reef off Alith, Saudi Arabia in…
Read MoreLinking the Indian Ocean and monsoons
Surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean naturally oscillate, a phenomenon called the Indian Ocean Dipole. During its positive phase, warmer waters in the western Indian Ocean bring heavy rains to…
Read MoreTracking reef fish
An orange anemonefish (Amphiprion sandaracinos) hides among sea anemones at a reef off Restoff Island in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. In April 2005, WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold and colleagues…
Read MoreHanging on
At the edge of a coral reef in the Red Sea, an isolated leather coral clings to a rocky outcrop. It’s individual polyps, tightly curled in the photo, open up…
Read MoreIsland view
Researchers who camped and worked on Greenland’s ice sheet this summer soaked in their initial glimpses of the huge Arctic island. “As western Greenland came into view, first-time visitors like myself glued…
Read MoreThe top of the reef
Coral reefs often extend from a sandy bottom to just beneath the water’s surface, forming broad reef flats. Barely a foot below the surface, the flats can be a harsh…
Read MoreTakuss, Greenland
Researchers who spent weeks in Greenland camping and working on the ice sheet said a final takuss (Greenlandic for see you) to Disko Bay, located in the coastal town Ilulissat. Photographer Chris…
Read MoreHot fluid on a cold seafloor
Researchers inside the submersible Alvin watch a black smoker chimney erupt from seafloor vents. Hot hydrothermal fluids surge through the chimneys at velocities of 1 to 5 meters per second.…
Read MoreYippee!
James Brennan II spread the good news last summer after requalifying to become an Alvin “swimmer,” or person who enters the water to assist with the launch and recovery of…
Read MoreFish dish
Summer student Lauren Watka from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth holds a petri dish of fish eggs from mummichogs, Fundulus heteroclitus. Working with post-doctoral fellow Matthew Jenny in WHOI biologist…
Read MoreChangeable clowns
Clownfish, or anemonefish (now commonly referred to as “Nemos,”) swim through what looks like waving wheat—actually the tentacles of their massive sea anemone home, moving with the water’s surge. A…
Read MoreReef’s edge
An inflatable boat and dive-tour operators stand by at a coral reef’s edge in the Red Sea, where WHOI scientists are studying the unique, pristine reef ecosystems along Saudi Arabia’s…
Read MoreProfiling below the ice
WHOI engineering assistant Kris Newhall (left) and crewmember of the Canadian icebreaker Louis V. St. Laurent Brian Mackenzie (middle) prepare to assist WHOI research specialist Rick Krishfield in deploying an…
Read MoreArctic summer night
Midnight in Greenland, in the summer, means the sun still shines. “For recent arrivals, the round-the-clock daylight streaming in the hotel windows have wreaked havoc on our internal clocks,” wrote…
Read MoreNew faces at old places
Small mushroom-shaped coral colonies are young recruits that have settled on a large dead coral in the Red Sea. Juvenile corals are continually colonizing hard substrates, including ancient colonies that…
Read MoreMooring away
In November 2007, R/V Atlantis Bosun Patrick Hennessy (left) and MIT/WHOI Joint Program graduate Benjamin Walther deploy a pump mooring during the LADDER III (LArval Dispersal on the Deep East…
Read MoreWhat Makes the Great Ocean Currents Flow?
By Ari Daniel :: Originally published online December 23, 2008
Read MoreTracking reef fish larvae
A spine-cheek anemonefish (Premnas biaculeatus), or maroon clownfish, swims along a coral reef in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. As part of an international collaboration, WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold and…
Read MoreA Deep-sea Chemical Sniffing Bloodhound
Mass spectrometers are often big and delicate instruments that require their own environmentally controlled rooms. WHOI engineer Rich Camilli developed one that scientists can bring into the depths to sensitively…
Read MoreSlow motion destruction
Gliding on hundreds of tiny suction-cup feet, A Crown-of-thorns sea star roams the reef, consuming immobile corals and leaving bare coral skeleton behind. Common in the Pacific and Indian Oceans…
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