Visitors to the Madden Center on SEA’s Woods Hole campus may have noticed an unusual 8-foot plexiglass tube, filled with synthetic saltwater, standing in the main stairwell. The tube is a rise velocity chamber, built by SEA volunteer Ethan Edson (C-247).

Thanks to a generous grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, researchers are taking practical steps to help curb ocean plastics pollution by sharing scientific research where it will do the most good!

Researchers have struck oil at SEA’s Woods Hole campus; well, not exactly oil, but tar.

Thousands of samples of floating tarballs have been collected in surface tows on SEA Semester cruises over a period of more than 30 years and have been carefully stored away in small glass jars, unstudied.  Until now.