The research program in the School of Oceanography presently is comprised of more than 170 projects covering a broad range of oceanographic investigations, ranging from one-person studies to multidisciplinary, multi-university projects. Annual direct expenditures exceed $11 million.

Well-equipped teaching and research laboratories are augmented by the 65-foot R/V "Clifford A. Barnes" and various small craft. In 1991, the 274-foot R/V "Thomas G. Thompson" joined the fleet.

Funds from federal agencies and from the state of Washington provide research support. Major sources of support during 1987-88 were the National Science Foundation (62%), the Office of Naval Research (22%), the State of Washington (4%), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (3%), the Department of Energy (2%), and other federal agencies such as NASA and EPA (5%). The remaining support was derived from various state and local governmental agencies and from private organizations.

* Biological Oceanography
* Chemical Oceanography
* Marine Geology and Geophysics
* Physical Oceanography

Biological Oceanography

The goal of biological oceanography is to understand what controls the abundances, kinds, and temporal variations of organisms in the sea. Progress toward this goal usually entails identifying the patterns of variability in space and time, determining the processes producing and maintaining the patterns, then quantifying the processes. Approaches include field observations, theoretical and numerical modeling, laboratory experimentation with individual species or isolated parts of the system under study, and field experimentation. The path to predictive understanding of biological systems leads as often into physical, chemical, or geological oceanography as it does into purely biological interactions; the biological oceanographer must be prepared to collaborate with physical scientists and study well outside the realm of pure biology. Making the proper connections among disciplines increasingly requires facility with mathematics (especially differential equations and linear algebra) as well as concepts from physics (especially mechanics). Students are expected to have a demonstrated aptitude for quantitative approaches and will be given ample opportunity and assistance to develop these skills.

Research and teaching programs in biological oceanography at the University of Washington are oriented toward a mechanistic understanding of processes in the sea. The strengths of the graduate program are a core of modern summary courses ensuring an up-to-date overview of the discipline combined with a research program having the flexibility and resources to advance in virtually any direction. Each graduate student learns the basics of water-column and benthic approaches as they pertain to microbes and macroscopic organisms. On a campus offering 5,000 courses in 200 academic disciplines and with 3,500 faculty, it is possible to tailor graduate committees and more specialized course work precisely to a student's needs and interests. The nationally recognized Departments of Zoology, Botany, and Microbiology and the School of Fisheries are typically utilized in this tailoring, but expertise is also drawn from other faculty, such as applied mathematicians, geophysicists, and chemical and electrical engineers.

New techniques in biological oceanography frequently are borrowed, with suitable modifications, from molecular biology and medical research. The School of Oceanography's proximity to the University's School of Medicine helps make it a leader in this type of innovation. In addition, the Office of Naval Research selected the University of Washington to be the recipient of a University Research Initiative in Marine Bioremediation through the Analysis and Modification of Marine Microbial Consortia. This project is directed by Dr. Jody Deming, a biological oceanographer, and comprises investigators from the Colleges of Engineering, Medicine and Forest Resources as well as from the School of Oceanography. It is a systematic search through natural marine sedimentary systems and processes for environmentally friendly technologies that can remove anthropogenic, toxic contaminants. The current focus is on consortia from sedimentary microenvironments, especially those that vary rapidly in chemical properties, such as the regions surrounding animals burrows and within animal guts. Another resource of inestimable value is the world-renowned Friday Harbor Laboratories complex, whose geographic location and seawater facilities turn work with live, delicate marine creatures from near impossibility into a regular component of many biological oceanographic research programs. The flow-tank facility at Friday Harbor, designed to look at interactions among near-bottom flows, sediments, and organisms, is the most advanced of its kind in the world.

While unlimited combinations and permutations for individual approaches exist, students should aim toward working within, or as an extension of, the research and teaching interests of the School's faculty. The processes under current research range not only across most of biological oceanography, but also into the closely related disciplines of chemical, geological and geophysical, and physical oceanography. Anaerobic metabolism, oxidation of reduced gases, and hydrolysis of organic compounds are topics of bacteriological interest, in the water column, in sediments, and at the high temperatures of deep-sea hydrothermal environments. Polar microbial systems provide another extreme of interest. There are strong ties to both chemical and geological oceanographic research programs studying marine sediments as well as hydrothermal systems. Interactions of phytoplankton with the light field and molecular probes for specific activities of phytoplankton are other foci now being explored. A recent approach is to couple such studies with the many scales of fluid motion, from small-scale turbulence to major ocean currents, which determine the environment experienced by a phytoplankton cell, population, or community. Satellites are essential tools for collecting the requisite information at larger scales, and interaction with physical oceanographers is extensive. The mechanics and dynamics of suspension feeding, bacterivory, and carnivory in plankton and of deposit feeding in the benthic fauna are major research topics. Of interest in both the water column and the benthos are feedbacks from these processes to community structure. Since the subjects so strongly interact, there are important ties between studies of deposit feeding and of sediment transport. Field environments for biological oceanographic studies range from estuaries to the open sea in low and high latitudes. All our biological oceanography faculty share interest in biological processes that contribute to global change. This common interest, combined with the diversity of other environmental science programs and personnel on campus, provides an unparalleled opportunity to explore the component processes that contribute to global change.

There is potential for confusion between biological oceanography and other branches of science that use marine organisms as models for studies. Some lines of inquiry are distinguished easily from oceanography, such as medical research use of hemoglobins or toxins manufactured by marine organisms because of their relative simplicity, neurophysiological use of squids and tubeworms for their usually large and manipulable nerve cells, and embryological use of sea urchin eggs as easily obtainable models of animal development. Marine biology, which is often a focus of study at the undergraduate level, and a common baccalaureate degree for students entering biological oceanography graduate programs, is rarely a field for more specialized graduate study in oceanography. The title of marine biologist has given way to more specific labels such as toxicologist, developmental biologist, or neurophysiologist.

The greatest overlap in approach and interests is between biological oceanography and other branches of ecology that use marine populations or ecosystems as model systems for general processes. The overlap is a beneficial stimulus to research in both fields, but it can be a source of confusion in choosing graduate schools. The distinctions are not always clear, vary among institutions, and are changing as biological oceanography evolves. Consequently, only the flavor of the distinctions and no hard-and-fast rules can be offered. A biological oceanographer will choose a particular system for study because he or she thinks that it will lead most rapidly to an understanding of a class of marine systems. A general ecologist might choose to study a particular marine system as a model for investigating a particular ecological process, such as the community structuring effected by competition or predation, if it seems a logistically convenient and accurate model from which generalizations about competition or predation can be drawn. The situation is not unlike a geneticist using fruit flies as convenient models for genetic systems as a whole. To stretch the point by making the argument in reverse, a biological oceanographer might study a terrestrial system, irrespective of its suitability for yielding generalizations for ecology as a whole, if that system promised to provide great insight for a large class of marine communities.

The most widespread oceanic communities, namely those inhabiting blue water or red clay far from shore, are central to biological oceanography, but may never be important model systems in general ecology. Biological oceanographers often use ships or submersibles when they go to the field; ecologists generally do not. Biological oceanographers are comfortable with the label "oceanographer," even without its prefix, while ecologists who choose marine systems as models prefer "ecologist" or "biologist."

Prospective students are encouraged to contact faculty members sharing their interests even before submitting an application; it is important that the School's course work and research is appropriate to a student's developing interests. Recent graduates and present students can also assist in making comparisons among graduate programs.

The School takes pride in the fact that all biological oceanography Ph.D. graduates in the past five years are currently employed within the field of oceanography. Getting the right match of a student's interests, instructional curriculum, and faculty advice and research expertise is an all-important first step.

Chemical Oceanography

Chemical oceanographers at the University of Washington study the mechanisms that control the distribution of elements and compounds in the ocean. The 1960's and early 1970's were a period of exploration, of chemical mapping of the oceans. Now that the first order distributions in the oceans and sediments are known, attention has shifted to detailed studies of specific processes and their rates. Almost invariably such studies are interdisciplinary and involve integration of chemical concepts with the physical, biological, and geological dynamics of marine systems. The School of Oceanography takes pride in being a leader in this mechanistic approach as applied to the chemical oceanography of inorganic and organic, stable, and radioactive elements.

The graduate-level educational program in chemical oceanography at the University of Washington involves a balance of formal course work and research. The program is designed to teach students with strong fundamental chemistry backgrounds how to apply their knowledge to oceanographic problems. The approach is somewhat analogous to that of a geologist. From careful study of a few rock exposures, a geologist will reconstruct the geological structure of an area. In the same way oceanographers have to construct their interpretations and models based on a few carefully selected data points. In our academic program the first year of core courses provides an integrated overview of oceanic processes. The introductory classes are complemented by more detailed courses and seminars on thermodynamics, kinetics, radiochemical tracers and ocean mixing, paleochemistry, geochemistry, organic geochemistry, and geochemical modeling.

A major benefit of being located at a major university is the educational opportunities offered by a variety of other departments and institutes. In chemical oceanography specific advantage is taken of specialized courses and analytical facilities available in the departments of Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Geology, Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Atmospheric Sciences. The Quaternary Research Center provides a unique opportunity for studying earth processes since before the last ice age. There are, in fact, over 40 scientists on campus from 17 departments with interests in environmental chemistry. Interaction is also strong with NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory located nearby.

The graduate program's primary goal is to train students to conduct basic research in the ocean. Most students begin research the summer prior to the first year of classes and continue until the completion of a Master's or Ph.D. degree. Research opportunities for study of both the water column and sediments exist and are, at least initially, closely related to the interests, facilities, and funding of the chemical oceanography faculty. Research interests of the faculty include trace metal, radionuclide, and trace organic distributions in coastal and open ocean environments; marine and freshwater biogeochemistry; sediment diagenesis; oceanography and geochemistry of anoxic ocean environments; carbon fluxes in ocean and freshwater environments; sources, transport mechanisms, and fates of organic matter in aquatic environments; sediment geochemistry; aqueous geochemistry; hydrothermal processes; ocean crust-seawater interaction; paleoceanography; surface chemistry especially as it pertains to control of trace element distributions in the sea; and stable isotope geochemistry.

Facilities for chemical research in the School of Oceanography include alpha, beta, and gamma radiochemistry laboratories, atomic absorption spectrophotometers, high pressure liquid chromatographs, gas chromatographs, ion chromatographs, flow injection analyzers, polarographic instrumentation, high temperature/pressure experimental apparatus, a ratio and quadrupole mass spectrometer for stable isotope studies, an inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometer, elemental and dissolved organic carbon analyzers, and a complete spectrum of computing resources. Other important facilities such as organic and additional ratio mass spectrometers (both gas and solid source systems), additional ion chromatographs, and a nuclear reactor are available elsewhere on campus or at the NOAA laboratories.

Faculty and students have ready access to the ocean on the research vessels operated by the School of Oceanography and other ships in the U.S. academic fleet. Several individual projects make use of the submersible DSRV Alvin. Access is available to deep-sea platforms for conducting long-term seafloor experiments and observations. The School is active in the Ocean Drilling Program providing opportunities to obtain samples for chemical studies from deep within the ocean crust.

The unique geographical location of the University of Washington provides convenient access to the full spectrum of marine and freshwater environments: lakes, rivers, estuaries, inland marine water, oxidizing and reducing fjords, and the open ocean.

The chemical oceanography faculty are involved in both individual and collaborative research projects supported by the National Science Foundation and other government agencies such as ONR, NOAA, and NASA. These programs provide graduate students the opportunity to take an active part in multidisciplinary research at the leading edge of the marine sciences. Examples of areas of focused study include:

Carbon Dynamics

Improvements in our understanding of this multi-faceted research area are crucial to our ability to explain past and foretell future climate change on Earth. Many of the faculty have active research projects involving different aspects of carbon cycling in the ocean. The fluxes of CO2 across the air-sea interface and organic carbon to them deep sea are being studied as part of the Global Ocean Flux Time Series and Process studies. The sources, transport mechanisms, and marine input of carbon and nutrients are the subject of a major joint University of Washington-Brazilian project on the Amazon River, CAMREX. State-of-the-art analytical facilities for stable and radioisotopes of carbon provide an important tool for elucidating the rates of carbon transport in and through the marine environment. The diagenesis of organic carbon is being studied using several approaches, including direct characterization of major constituents and examination of the pore water chemistry of carbon, oxygen, and nutrients.

Solute-Particle Interactions

Scavenging of seawater solutes onto particulate matter and sediments plays a key role in controlling trace element distributions in the water column and in marine sediments. Parallel study of metal distributions and particle-reactive radioisotopes provides quantitative information on the rates of these processes. Laboratory studies of surface chemical reactions and solubility controls on aqueous metal concentrations complement these field programs.

Hydrothermal Systems

Within the School there is a group pursuing multidisciplinary studies of the geological, geophysical, chemical, and microbiological processes active in seafloor hydrothermal vents. The focus is the 550 km long Juan de Fuca Ridge located about 300 miles off the coast of Washington. This study has employed both surface ships and submersible investigations. Research efforts include Ocean Drilling Program coring in the northeast Pacific through the late 1990's and a program to establish a long-term ocean bottom observatory on the ridge.

Research experience complemented by a comprehensive curriculum are the heart of the educational program and the reason University of Washington chemical oceanography students compete so successfully for jobs following graduation.

Marine Geology and Geophysics

Graduate study in Marine Geology and Geophysics at the University of Washington focuses on two primary areas of education and research: Lithosphere & Mantle Dynamics, which treats the origin and evolution of the oceanic crust and upper mantle, and Sediment Dynamics, which deals with the genesis, transport and deposition of particulates in the marine environment. Studies within each of these two primary areas build on a solid academic foundation in the fundamentals of heat and mass transport as a basis for understanding the geological processes within the marine environment. Research efforts include experimental, observational, and numerical modeling approaches. The curriculum reflects a commitment to preparing a new generation of marine geologists and geophysicists to address the challenging scientific questions of the future in a quantitative fashion.

The Marine Geology and Geophysics option within the School of Oceanography is complemented on campus by strong departments in Geological Sciences and solid earth Geophysics, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, and Engineering. These programs offer a rich diversity of basic course work, which sets the stage for further specialized course offerings in Marine Geology that address processes in the global ocean. Research on the important problems in marine geology and geophysics also requires input from other areas of oceanography. When geological and geophysical models are combined with biological, chemical, and physical oceanographic studies, a more comprehensive understanding of oceanic processes can be obtained. Close cooperation between disciplines in studying marine processes is an essential component of all research programs in the School of Oceanography, and is reflected in interdisciplinary course offerings. Course work is complemented by a unique program which allows students to use our new research vessel, the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, for their research and sea-going classes.

Lithosphere & Mantle Dynamics Faculty and students in the School of Oceanography's marine geology group are currently investigating lithosphere and mantle dynamics in the Pacific, Atlantic, and southern oceans. The School of Oceanography's proximity to the Juan de Fuca/Gorda Ridge system and Cascadia subduction zone provides ready access to an ideal natural laboratory for evaluation of the basic plate tectonic components. Focusing regional studies on the Juan de Fuca Ridge allows us to characterize the complex interactions between mantle dynamics, lithosphere accretion and alteration, and the impacts of those processes on the hydrosphere and biosphere. A few of the specific areas of research currently pursued by faculty and students in Marine Geology and Geophysics are summarized below.


Studies of the accretion of oceanic lithosphere involve understanding how the mantle convects, how melt is generated from the upwelling mantle and delivered to the spreading center, what chemical processes alter the composition of the melt, and how the resulting lithosphere deforms. This research is achieved through a combination of theoretical work and field experiments in various spreading center environments around the world. Cooling of molten rock by circulation of seawater through cracks results in hot water that issues from the sea floor in hydrothermal vents. Fluid circulation cells are also established in the off-axis lithosphere. This fluid circulation alters the physical and chemical properties of the rocks, sediments and water column, and provides the energy that supports biological communities based on chemosynthesis. Our understanding of these processes is limited, both by sparse data and inadequate numerical models. However, progress in modeling accretion of oceanic lithosphere, hydrothermal circulation and crustal evolution processes is a major focus of academic and research programs at the University of Washington and will be an exciting area of interdisciplinary study for the next several decades.

Within the School of Oceanography facilities are available for undertaking research in most fields of marine geology and geophysics. They include the multibeam echo-sounder Hydrosweep, a deep-tow magnetometer system, a paleomagnetic laboratory, ocean bottom seismometers, and extensive computing facilities. Research conducted by faculty and students in Marine Geology and Geophysics employs the R/V Thomas G. Thompson and other vessels in the academic fleet, as well as manned and remotely-operated submersibles. Marine Geology and Geophysics faculty are involved in numerous large research programs, including Ridge Interdisciplinary Global Experiments (RIDGE) and the Ocean Drilling Project (ODP).

Future plans include an aggressive program to establish long-term ocean bottom observatories, designed to recover in real-time simultaneous seismological, hydrothermal, and volcanological data from the nearby, actively spreading ridge crests. The creation of a multidisciplinary Volcano Systems Center on the campus of the University of Washington symbolizes our commitment to the study of volcanic processes both in the ocean basins and on land.

Marine Sediment Dynamics The study of marine sediment dynamics focuses on the process of marine sediment transport. It builds on a foundation of classical mechanics, and students are expected to complete a range of courses including fluid dynamics, fundamentals of sediment transport, and bedform analysis. In the marine environment numerous other mechanisms and processes occur which also must be considered. These include phenomena such as particle aggregation, seabed modification by benthic organisms, and combined interactions of waves and currents on the seabed. Thus, a strong interdisciplinary program is designed which, depending on a student's interests, includes physics, biology and chemistry, in addition to basic courses in geology and geophysics.


Sedimentological research in the School of Oceanography includes field studies in a wide range of coastal environments, and numerous laboratory and numerical studies. In addition to individual research projects these include participation in major cooperative programs such as surf zone suspended sediment transport (SANDY DUCK), Sediment Transport in Regions of Seasonal Ice Cover, and Sediment Transport on Temperate Continental Shelves (STRATAFORM). Studies in sediment erosion processes and sediment aggregation dynamics have also been carried out in turbulent flow tanks at the Friday Harbor Laboratories.

Among the resources available to students pursuing sediment transport research is the flow-tank facility at the world-renowned Friday Harbor Laboratories, designed to look at interactions among near-bottom flows, sediments and organisms, and an instrument development laboratory with a long history of instrument design and engineering support of sedimentological research projects.

Prospective students interested in one or more of these active research programs will find the University of Washington a very stimulating place for interdisciplinary studies. Attesting to the quality of our research and academic programs, all recent Ph.D. graduates from the School's Marine Geology and Geophysics program have found employment in universities or industry. An important first step to ensuring success in graduate school is finding the right match of student's interest, instructional curriculum and faculty research expertise. We strongly encourage applicants to contact faculty members sharing their research interest.

Physical Oceanography

The ocean is in motion over an enormous range of scales, from microscale turbulence extending over a few millimeters to the great ocean gyres encompassing entire basins thousands of kilometers in extent. It is the goal of physical oceanography to systematically understand and describe this motion in as quantitative a fashion as possible. Arriving at such a description is founded on a knowledge of classical physics and applied mathematics, but physical oceanography has matured to a point where a large number of individual, highly disparate approaches to studying the ocean as a system are possible.

Physical oceanography requires a basic understanding of the mechanics of fluids. Because the research emphasis is on seawater movement in the context of a natural, rather than laboratory environment, attention is concentrated on the field of geophysical fluid dynamics, which is the jumping-off point for almost all physical studies of the ocean. Geophysical fluid dynamics is the study of fluid motion on a rotating sphere. From a basic theoretical understanding of the behavior of fluids in an oceanic context, the research possibilities are seemingly endless.

Many physical oceanographers regularly go to sea to test theoretical predictions by collecting data relating to a particular process occurring in the ocean. Some are heavily involved in the development of high-technology instrumentation that can ultimately be used to probe the ocean in new and exciting ways. Others have taken a different approach, preferring to use computer models to explore the variability of the ocean. A few work independently of technological advances as they search for new, analytic solutions to the basic equations of geophysical fluid dynamics in order to predict fluid motion in the world's oceans.

In a system as complex as the ocean, which is in motion over such a wide range of scales, the number of phenomena requiring description is quite large. At the very largest scales the physical oceanographer seeks to understand the interaction of wind patterns in the atmosphere with the oceanic gyres that fill the major basins of the earth; the problem of global climatic fluctuations induced by this interaction is presently a major area of physical oceanographic research. The instability of the ocean gyres, leading to the generation of mesoscale eddies, is an area of research that has been very active for the past decade; the role of the eddies in the mixing of both physical and chemical oceanic properties on the larger, gyre scale is under active investigation. At somewhat smaller scales, more local atmospheric phenomena can homogenize the upper layers of the ocean, generating in the process a variety of oceanic wave phenomena. Due to the large concentration of biological activity in the upper ocean, such physical processes have important biological consequences.

Ultimately all physical processes degenerate to turbulence at very small scales, from tens of meters down to a few millimeters. It is on these relatively small scales that the dissipation of energy in the ocean truly occurs, and the magnitude and nature of this dissipation must be understood before the motions at any of the larger scales can be completely quantified. While a basic interest in the ocean as a system, from large scales to small, is desirable, most physical oceanographers choose to concentrate their research efforts on one or a few scales of motion.

At the University of Washington active research on each of these physical oceanographic problems is underway, from both theoretical and observational viewpoints. The School has one of the largest and most diverse oceanographic faculties in the United States, with over 30 faculty members in physical oceanography alone. Faculty members and graduate students are involved in projects in all of the major oceans of the world, from the high Arctic and the Antarctic to the Equator, and from coastal estuaries to trenches in the center of ocean basins.

One of the greatest strengths of the physical oceanography program at the University of Washington is that it is part of a major university: at the core of the study of physical oceanography is an understanding of physics, fluid mechanics, and applied mathematics. Graduate teaching and research in each of these fields is ongoing in other departments on campus. In addition, the School has strong ties with the University's renowned Department of Atmospheric Sciences. A number of faculty have joint and affiliate positions with the University's Applied Physics Laboratory and with the nearby Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, both of which undertake seagoing and theoretical research in physical oceanography. A number of our students choose to do their research at these laboratories.

Physical oceanography is a young science. While the basic principles of physics and applied mathematics central to the study of ocean circulation have been known for centuries, it is only in the past fifty years that serious exploration of the deep ocean has begun. Even today, there are enormous areas of the Arctic, Antarctic, Indian, and South Pacific Oceans that remain virtually unexplored. As a consequence, only a very elementary description of the deep ocean circulation on a global scale is possible at the present time. The next decade promises, however, to be an exciting era in the study of physical oceanography. The use of dedicated satellites by physical oceanographers will allow the surface circulation over the entire globe to be mapped at weekly intervals, and other new technologies will permit remote sensing of the subsurface circulation in previously unexplored regions of the world ocean. A new generation of computers will allow a more complete set of numerical models of ocean circulation to be developed, which can then lead to a predictive capability of oceanic circulation.

The exploitation of these new resources to address the challenging problems of the future will require a new generation of scientists, educated in the basic principles of physics and mathematics, and fully familiar with modern techniques in numerical modeling and oceanographic instrumentation. These research areas, as well as others are areas of expertise in the School of Oceanography.

All University of Washington physical oceanography Ph.D. graduates in the last eight years are currently employed in the field, predominantly at oceanographic research or educational institutions. The breadth of the physical oceanography faculty's research and our comprehensive educational program are major keys to the successful careers of our students.