About Us

The Ocean Sciences Department is an inclusive, supportive, and innovative community of people involved in oceanography and other marine sciences. We offer undergraduate and graduate courses in these disciplines. Students have access to a wide variety of research facilities and equipment through faculty sponsors. 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; sediment, marine, organic, and trace metal biogeochemistry; marine plankton, phytoplankton ecology, paleoceanography, aquatic microbial ecology, ecological modeling, and remote sensing (satellite oceanography); numeric modeling of coastal and basin-scale dynamics; midwater ecology and climatology, among others.

Facts & figures

#3
Global rank for research influence by citation index (2018)

#3
Best Marine Biology School in California (2022)

20+
Research partners in institutions and facilities along Monterey Bay

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Principles of Community

Contact & visitor information
831-459-2563
831-459-4882 Fax
osadmin@ucsc.edu
Earth & Marine Sciences Bldg
A312
Employment opportunities
Graduate Advisor

Explore Ocean Sciences News

The latest high-impact science in Ocean Sciences

The science team of IODP Expedition 389: Hawaiian Drowned Reefs.

Scientists use Hawaiian fossils to study the past and future of climate change

This month, an international team of researchers returned to shore after a two-month-long ocean expedition exploring fossil coral reefs off the coast of Hawai’i. The fossils provide a record of past climate conditions, so scientists are using them to learn about environmental changes throughout geologic history and make predictions about the future

Scientists using biologging tags to study the movement and migratory behavior of whales off California in response to climate change. Photo: Friedlaender Lab

Five UC Santa Cruz projects win California Climate Action Grant funding

Millions of dollars in new funding will support UC Santa Cruz and partners in tackling some of California’s toughest climate change challenges through innovative research and community engagement

Alexa Fredston, an assistant professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, uses large data sets and models to understand human impacts on the oceans. (Photo by Britt Lichty)

Coastal fisheries show surprising resilience to marine heatwaves

Researchers found that fish biomass often increased or was unaffected in the year following a marine heatwave