The Ocean Sciences Department includes faculty and students involved in oceanography and other marine sciences and sponsors undergraduate and graduate courses in these disciplines. Through faculty sponsors, students have access to a wide variety of research facilities and equipment, including on-campus analytical chemistry, geology and molecular biology laboratories for marine research, computing and imaging facilities, an on-shore marine laboratory two miles from campus (Long Marine Laboratory) with aquariums and holding tanks that are supplied with running sea water, and a unique field station on Año Nuevo Island (19 miles north of Santa Cruz) especially suited for studies on pinnipeds and marine birds. The department supports collaborative studies utilizing the innovative technologies of the nearby Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, CSU Moss Landing Laboratory, and others. Students may also work at other University of California facilities, including the Bodega Marine Laboratories and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

In addition to research and instructional activities along the California coast, interests of the core faculty and their students include biological, chemical and physical oceanography, plus sediment, marine organic and trace metal biogeochemistry, marine plankton, phytoplankton ecology, paleoceanography, aquatic microbial ecology, ecological modeling and remote sensing (satellite oceanography), coastal circulation processes and the development of software applications for real-time data acquisition and data visualization, midwater ecology, climatology and many more.    ...  [More]

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