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Two Ships Passing

November 19, 2016

The research vessels Atlantis (foreground) and Thomas G. Thompson sailed the same seas for a brief time in the summer of 2009. If they seem to look a alike, it’s because they are are sister ships, built with the same design in the 1990s. WHOI operates Atlantis. Thompson is operated by the University of Washington. Both ships were visiting the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where two tectonic plates are spreading apart off the coast of Washington State and British Columbia. Scientists were studying the circulation of fluids beneath the seafloor and communities of animals that live at seafloor hydrothermal vents.(Photo by Mark Spear, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)