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Taking the Oil’s Measure

In response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, WHOI scientists and engineers contributed a broad range of expertise and equipment to investigations of the oil and its impact on the environment. Biologist Cabell Davis and Joint Program PhD student Nick Loomis used their holographic imaging instrument, the Holocam, to image and measure oil droplets and living plankton in the hydrocarbon plume that formed deep beneath the surface. On a June night aboard the M/V Jack Fitz (above), Davis mounts the Holocam on a frame that will carry it and other sensors down to the plume’s depth. (Photo by Nick Loomis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)