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Two Men and a BT

WHOI researchers Fritz Fuglister, left, and Dana Densmore inspect a bathythermograph, or BT, prior to a research cruise in 1957. BTs measure temperature and depth while being dropped from or towed behind a ship. Developed at WHOI in the late 1930s, BTs enabled scientists to begin deciphering the structure of water masses below the surface of the ocean. Fuglister, who was an artist by training, came to work at WHOI in 1941 and in 1962 became the first chairman of the Physical Oceanography department. Densmore, who worked in the same department as liaison between scientists and ships’ crews, passed away recently after a lifetime at sea in support of oceanographic research. (Photo by Jan Hahn, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)