Search | Smithsonian Ocean

Search

Showing results for

Dr. Maya Yamato and colleague John Ososky dissect the head of a deceased stranded fin whale in the Chesapeake Bay to examine soft tissue associated with the ears. In 2015, Yamato’s team of researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural H

Photo

Learning From A Stranded Fin Whale

March 2015

Corals Get Covered: The Gulf oil spill was different from many big oil spills in history because oil spewed from a well in the deep sea instead of leaking onto the ocean's surface. GoMRI scientists have found that oil remains in the deep to this day—and

Photo

Corals Get Covered

February 2015

Dispersant in the Deep: Dispersants, soap-like chemicals that cause oil to mix with water more easily, have been used with success to remove oil after a spill on the ocean's surface. But Deepwater Horizon wasn't a surface spill; instead, oil spewed into th

Photo

Oil Spewing From Macondo Well

January 2015

Horizontal bands of color represent different species of lichen that have adapted to the conditions at different heights above sea level.

Photo

Lichen Zones

September 2015

A emperor penguin chick sits under its mother's legs.

Photo

Emperor Penguin Chick with Mother

December 2017

Red Pigfish and Blue Mao-Mao school at the edge of a cavern in New Zealand's Poor Knights Islands. Read photographer Brian Skerry's story behind this photo.

Photo

Protected Pigfish and Mao-Mao School

February 2018

Like a typical jelly, the tentacles of Haliscera biglowi trail behind it as it moves, causing water flow to push small organisms into the path of the jelly’s deadly stinging grip.

Photo

Stinging Grip

March 2016

Bathochordaeus stygius are filter feeders closely related to sea squirts in the phylum Chordata, the same phylum to which humans belong.

Photo

Mucus Home

March 2016

Corolla moves through the water by flapping a wing plate nearly twice the size of its gelatinous shell, giving it the nickname “sea butterfly”.

Photo

Sea Butterfly

March 2016

Sea squire illustrations from Ernst Haeckel.

Photo

Sea Squirts

June 2015

Citizen Science Tracks Oil’s Path: When oil spills into seawater, it's hard to know where ocean currents will carry it. To map Gulf currents and improve predictions, scientists with GoMRI's GISR project are dropping biodegradable yellow driftcards throug

Photo

Citizen Science With a Drift Card

January 2015

Gulf Marsh Animals Bounce Back But Monitoring Continues: One of the biggest questions is how Gulf animals will fare in the years after the spill, since oil spill impacts don't often happen immediately. One group of GoMRI researchers studied salt marsh anim

Photo

Fiddler Crabs In a Gulf Marsh

January 2015