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About UC Santa Cruz

Ocean Sciences
Earth & Marine Sciences Bldg.
A-312 Office
A-316 Mailroom
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Phone: (831) 459-4730
Fax: (831) 459-4882
Email: Ocean Sciences
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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.

Ocean Sciences affiliated faculty in other departments represent a deep resource of research interests and methodologies including those pertaining to coral reef and kelp forest ecology, plate tectonics and continental margins, marine mammal behavior and physiology, and natural products from marine organisms. Student research projects have included participation in major scientific expeditions to various marine environments ranging from polar regions to the tropics.

The University of California at Santa Cruz was opened in 1965. It is a 2,000 acre campus of redwood forest and meadowland overlooking the scenic Monterey Bay. Nearly half of the 15,000 undergraduates and most of the 1,500 graduate students major in a discipline of the natural sciences. Students enjoy close partnerships with quality faculty, state-of-the-art labs, exciting opportunities for field research, and the resources of the world's finest public university system.

Undergraduate Programs

Although offering a range of undergraduate courses, the Ocean Sciences Department presently offers only graduate degrees. The undergraduate major in marine biology, sponsored by the Biological Sciences Departments, includes required and elective courses in ocean sciences, and there is an ocean sciences concentration in Earth sciences for undergraduates.

Students interested in ocean sciences should major in a discipline such as biology, marine biology, chemistry, Earth sciences, physics, or mathematics and take ocean sciences-related electives. Students with a bachelor's degree in one of these disciplines or equivalent course work may apply directly for admission to the graduate program through the Division of Graduate Studies.

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