Press Room
How high is the sky? Scientists have a pretty good handle on that one, what with their knowledge of the troposphere, stratosphere an the other ?o-spheres.? Now, thanks to new work headed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), they are closing in on the other half of that age-old query: How deep is the ocean?
Inspiration can come from unexpected sources. For Amy Bower, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), it was triggered by a mundane-sounding requirement entitled ?Criterion 2,? part of a standard research grant proposal to the National Science Foundation in 2004.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has been informed by the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) that it has been selected to operate AGOR 27, one of two new Ocean Class research vessels to be built by the […]
They paved paradise and, it turns out, actually did put up a parking lot. A big one. Some 700 feet deep in the waters off California?s jewel of a coastal resort, Santa Barbara, sits a group of football-field-sized asphalt domes unlike any other underwater features known to exist. About 35,000 years ago, a series of apparent undersea volcanoes deposited massive flows of petroleum 10 miles offshore. The deposits hardened into domes that were discovered recently by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has chosen James E. Cloern, a senior research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey for the last 34 years, as the recipient of the 2010 Bostwick H. Ketchum Award.
Working in a rare, ?natural seafloor laboratory? of hydrothermal vents that had just been rocked by a volcanic eruption, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and other institutions have discovered what they believe is an undersea superhighway carrying tiny life forms unprecedented distances to inhabit the post-eruption site.
Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have developed two advanced broadband acoustic systems that they believe could represent the acoustic equivalent of the leap from black-and-white television to high-definition color TV. For oceanographers, this could mean a major upgrade […]
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is part of an international sea search operation formed to locate the deep-sea wreck site of Air France Flight 447 and to retrieve the flight recorders from the Airbus A 330.
WOODS HOLE, MA—Woods Hole scientists are hailing last week’s announcement of $32 million in federal stimulus funds awarded to the OpenCape Corporation to construct a new broadband network across southeastern Massachusetts. The project, which will consist of a wireless network, […]
A pioneering deep-sea exploration robot—one of the first successful submersible vehicles that was both unmanned and untethered to surface ships—was lost at sea Friday, March 5, on a research expedition off the coast of Chile. The 15-year-old Autonomous Benthic Explorer, […]
The massive, 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile Feb. 27 occurred in an offshore zone that was under increased stress caused by a 1960 quake of magnitude 9.5, according to geologist Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
Today, scientists from the NOAA-funded Gulf of Maine Toxicity (GOMTOX) project issued an outlook for a significant regional bloom of a toxic alga that can cause ‘red tides’ in the spring and summer of this year, potentially threatening the New […]
In a technological advance that its developers are likening to the cell phone and wireless Internet access, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and engineers have devised an undersea optical communications system that?complemented by acoustics?enables a virtual revolution in high-speed undersea data collection and transmission.
Climate change is a well-known problem resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent release of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. But a separate, lesser-known problem resulting from increased CO2 emissions is that the world’s oceans are […]
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Timothy M. Shank is among five guest editors of a newly published special edition of the research journal Oceanography on the oceans? seamounts, submerged isolated mountains in the sea. Shank is also a contributor to the special Oceanography edition.
Waters from warmer latitudes — or subtropical waters — are reaching Greenland’s glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss, reports a team of researchers led by Fiamma Straneo, a physical oceanographer from the Woods Hole Oceanographic […]
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that triggered disastrous destruction and mounting death tolls in Haiti this week occurred in a highly complex tangle of tectonic faults near the intersection of the Caribbean and North American crustal plates, according to a quake expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) who has studied faults in the region and throughout the world.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will receive $8.1 million from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to construct the Laboratory for Ocean Sensors and Observing Systems. The WHOI award is one of only 12 […]
Oceanographers using the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason discovered and recorded the first video and still images of a deep-sea volcano actively erupting molten lava on the seafloor.
Jason, designed and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the National […]
John Farrington and David Gallo of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.