Marine Research Division

The studies in the Marine Research Division span the disciplines of biological oceanography, marine chemistry, physical oceanography, and marine engineering. Some of the ongoing research is summarized below.

• Drs. Mizuki Tsuchiya, Lynne D. Talley and others are studying the large-scale circulation of the South Atlantic Ocean using hydrographic data they collected along a long meridional section extending from South Georgia Island (54gS) northward to 0g40'N.
• Dr. Gustaf Arrhenius's group study the characteristics of the earth's earliest ocean and atmosphere.
• The intercampus University of California Marine Bio-Optics Group (UCMBO) studies theoretical and applied problems in marine optics by using both experimental work at sea and modeling.
• In Dr. Joris Gieskes's laboratory, researchers study the geochemistry of borehole fluids obtained from re-entry of abandoned oceanic boreholes drilled during the Deep Sea Drilling Project and the Ocean Drilling Program.
• Drs. William H. Thomas, Carl H. Gibson, and Maria Vernet continue their work on the inhibition of red-tide dinoflagellate growth by laboratory-induced, quantified turbulent mixing.
• The activities of the Ocean Engineering Research Group include study of sediment transport at Santa Cruz Harbor and the performance of a new breakwater at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco Bay.
• The Polar Research Program, headed by Dr. Osmond Holm-Hansen, is part of the multidisciplinary RACER (Research on Antarctic Coastal Ecosystem Rates) program.
• The Sea Grant trainees in Dr. Fenical's group continued a study of natural products chemistry of marine ascidians and marine bacteria as part of a program to discover new anti-inflammatory agents from marine sources. In a National Institutes of Health-supported study Dr. Fenical's group is focused on developing marine compounds for the treatment of cancer. In collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, over 600 marine organisms have been evaluated over the past year.