VIMS

2007 Top Stories

VIMS team wins grant to study blue crab disease

VIMS Professor Jeffrey Shields receives a 5-year, $2.4 million federal grant to study how fishing pressure and declines in water quality affect the emergence and spread of a blue crab disease in the seaside bays of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Project SeaCAMEL mission begins

Assoc. Professor Mark Patterson leads a team of aquanauts as they present live underwater broadcasts from Aquarius, America’s “Inner Space Station” and the world’s only undersea habitat.

VIMS receives mastodon tooth

Mr. Irvin Shackelford of Saluda donates prize possession on behalf of his family and late father Raymond Shackelford, a long-time charter boat captain out of Bena.

Dickhut puts pollutants to good use

VIMS Professor Rebecca Dichkhut is using persistent organic pollutants to help measure the degree of mixing between Mediterranean and western Atlantic stocks of bluefin tuna.

Scientists find new life in Antarctic deep

An international research team including VIMS Professor Robert Diaz has found hundreds of new marine species in the deep-sea surrounding Antarctica.

Hale and Chen find PBDEs in Chinese raptors

Study reveals that birds of prey in China have some of the highest levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) ever recorded in an animal.

Ocean storms create oases in watery desert

A team including researchers from VIMS reports that episodic, swirling current systems known as eddies act to pump nutrients up from the deep ocean to fuel blooms of algae in otherwise barren mid-ocean regions.

Twilight zone plays key role in climate change

A study sheds new light on the ocean's "twilight zone"—where little-known processes affect the ocean's ability to absorb and store carbon dioxide accumulating in our atmosphere.

O'Connor Visits VIMS

Former Supreme Court Justice and current William and Mary Chancellor Sandra Day O'Connor braves a spring snowstorm to tour VIMS.

Norfolk Southern Gift

Norfolk Southern Corporation has committed $150,000 to VIMS to help purchase an Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer, an instrument that provides new opportunities for addressing important questions in marine ecology and conservation.

Blue Crab Bowl

A team from the Chesapeake Bay Governor's School-Warsaw Campus takes top honors in the 2007 Blue Crab Bowl at VIMS.

Graves Wins Award

The International Game Fish Association honors Prof. John Graves with its individual Conservation Award for his groundbreaking research and management efforts in regards to billfish and tuna.