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Research Highlights

Oceanus Magazine

Lost City Pumps Life-essential Chemicals at Rates Unseen at Typical Black Smokers

Lost City Pumps Life-essential Chemicals at Rates Unseen at Typical Black Smokers

January 31, 2008

Hydrocarbons—molecules critical to life—are routinely generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean, according to research led by the University of Washington and the Woods Hole Oceanographic…

Will Ocean Iron Fertilization Work?

Will Ocean Iron Fertilization Work?

January 7, 2008

In this age of satellites, it’s fairly easy to answer the basic question of whether adding iron to the ocean can stimulate a plankton bloom. When storms over land blow iron-rich dust into the sea, satellite images show marbled swaths…

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Fertilizing the Ocean with Iron

November 13, 2007

  “Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age” may rank as the catchiest line ever uttered by a biogeochemist. The man responsible was the late John Martin, former director of the Moss Landing…

Growing Marine Plants Need Their Vitamins

Growing Marine Plants Need Their Vitamins

June 7, 2007

Your mother was right: You need your vitamins. And that turns out to be true for life in the oceans, too. B12—an essential vitamin for land-dwelling animals, including humans—also plays a vital and previously overlooked role in determining how microscopic…

Still Toxic After All These Years

Still Toxic After All These Years

April 23, 2007

This is a story about persistence—of oil, and of people. It began in 1969 when the barge Florida ran aground off Cape Cod, spilling 189,000 gallons of fuel. But it began for me in 2000, when Aubrey Hounshell kept calling…

News Releases

Ben Van Mooy and a Sediment Trap

Microbe Dietary Preferences Influence the Effectiveness of Carbon Sequestration in the Deep Ocean

September 13, 2024

A series of seemingly small processes helps carry carbon dioxide from the ocean’s surface to the deep sea, where it can be stored away for decades.

Can adding iron to the ocean help it absorb CO2?

September 9, 2024

A newly published article spells out the work needed to assess the potential of ocean iron fertilization as a low cost, scalable, and rapidly deployable method of mCDR.

Open Ocean

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Announces Shift of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement Field Trials to Summer 2025

August 14, 2024

Change was made in response to changing ship availability and to resulting changes in ocean conditions later in the year

USVI Reef

WHOI Scientists ‘read’ the messages in chemical clues left by coral reef inhabitants

June 10, 2024

What species live in this coral reef, and are they healthy? Chemical clues emitted by marine organisms might hold that information

A Kids Book

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Marine Chemist Authors ‘A Kids Book About Being a Scientist’

May 21, 2024

In his new book, A Kids Book About Being a Scientist, award-winning author and WHOI chemist Chris Reddy encourages young people to explore the world around them

News & Insights

Japan releases treated water from ruined nuclear plant

August 24, 2023

WHOI marine radiochemist Ken Buesseler weighs in on the discharge of wastewater from Fukushima

What happens to natural gas in the ocean?

October 6, 2022

WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy weighs in on a methane leak in the Baltic Sea

Ocean Encounters: Ocean Pollution

March 2, 2022

In case you missed it… From plastic to oil spills, experts discuss ways to control ocean pollution in our last Ocean Encounters

The power of the ocean

December 23, 2021

An op-ed in the national news outlet The Hill by WHOI senior scientist Ken Buesseler reinforces the power and importance of the ocean in carbon dioxide removal strategies

Rapid microbial methanogenesis during CO2 storage in hydrocarbon reservoirs

December 22, 2021