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Sounding the Ocean

WHOI research engineer Fred Jaffre works on a miniaturized sonar board originally developed to measure currents in the ocean. Recently, biologist Gareth Lawson and a team that includes Jaffre, Andone Lavery, and Peter Wiebe received a Green Technology Innovation Award to use the instrument as the basis for a device that helps researchers explore in new ways. The “sonar tag” is designed to be deployed on an elephant seal to measure the abundance of the organisms they eat. Because sound travels further in water than light, the team hopes their device will be able to measure over a longer range than a conventional camera.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)