Skip to content

Multimedia Items


Cute as a Button

Cute as a Button

Porpita porpita—the blue button jelly —is a neustonic species mostly found in the tropics; that is, it floats right neat the surface of the water. The circular disc is […]

Read More

Taking Stock

Taking Stock

Biologist Richard “Dick” Backus examines swordfish specimens in his WHOI laboratory, circa 1956. More than five decades later, Backus is still identifying the ocean’s bounty of life as a […]

Read More

Inspection Day

Inspection Day

George Kevorkian of Conam Inspection scrutinizes Alvin’s titanium personnel sphere, examining weldments during the submersible’s overhaul in February 2006 (click for a Windows Media movie). His tools included a […]

Read More

Clear as Mud

Clear as Mud

A smear of mud from a sediment core makes for a kaleidoscopic vision when observed under cross-polarized light. Polarizing filters help scientists identify each speck of organic and inorganic […]

Read More

Almost Famous

Almost Famous

The French submersible Cyana is launched into the North Atlantic in 1974 as part of the French-American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study (Project FAMOUS). The submersible—together with the WHOI-operated Alvin […]

Read More

Form for Function

Form for Function

Engineer Chris Lumping (left) and welder Tony Delane examine the mooring anchor framework they built for a “multifunction node” (MFN) and buoy system that will help researchers monitor whale activity. […]

Read More

Feeling Crabby

Feeling Crabby

A female crab with orange eggs tucked into her abdomen was collected from the deep seafloor  during an Alvin dive in May 2005. Researchers return frequently to places like […]

Read More

Hot Head

Hot Head

This top piece of a black smoker chimney was plucked from the southern East Pacific Rise for study by geochemist Meg Tivey and colleagues. Named “Hobbes” by the […]

Read More

Basking

Basking

The R/V Knorr soaks up the sunlight at a dock in Bridgetown, Barbados, in the spring of 2007. The Knorr docked in Barbados before heading out to conduct drilling […]

Read More

Escort Service

Escort Service

A pod of dolphins escort the research vessel Atlantis (with its bow casting a shadow on the water) through the Pacific Ocean in 2006.

(Photo by Anton Zafereo, Woods Hole […]

Read More