Curricular Groups

The Doctoral Program

The Scripps Department offers instruction leading to Ph.D. degrees in oceanography, marine biology, and earth sciences. Although students are not admitted specifically for a M.S. degree, it is possible to obtain a M.S. on the way to completing the Ph.D. degree. The Scripps Department is organized into three academic programs: Climate-Ocean-Atmosphere Program (COAP), Geosciences of the Earth, Oceans and Planets (GEO), and Ocean Biosciences Program (OBP).

 
Each of these programs is responsible for all graduate educational activities in its area, including teaching, advising, and examining. The academic programs are umbrellas for curricular groups as follows:

 Climate-Ocean-Atmosphere Program (COAP)

• Applied Ocean Science (AOS)
• Climate Sciences (CS)
•  Physical Oceanography (PO)

 Geosciences of the Earth, Oceans and Planets (GEO)

•  Geosciences (GS)
•  Geophysics (GP)
•  Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry (MCG)

 Ocean Biosciences Program (OBP)

•  Biological Oceanography (BO)
•  Marine Biology (MB)

 
Climate-Ocean-Atmosphere Program (COAP) 

Applied Ocean Science is a multidisciplinary program focused on the application of advanced technology to ocean exploration and observation. AOS students perform research in marine acoustics, optics, electromagnetics, geophysics, ecology, sediment transport, coastal processes, physical oceanography, and air-sea interaction. The emphasis is on the resolution of key scientific issues through novel technological development. The science focus of the Scripps AOS program is complemented by parallel Applied Ocean Science programs in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE), and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) departments. Students have access to professors, courses, and research facilities across all three departments.

Climate Sciences concerns the study of the climate system of the earth with emphasis on the physical, dynamical, and chemical interactions of the atmosphere, ocean, land, ice, and the terrestrial and marine biospheres. The program encompasses changes on seasonal to interannual time scales and those induced by human activities, as well as paleoclimatic changes on time scales from centuries to millions of years. Examples of current research activities include: interannual climate variability; physics and dynamics of El Niño; studies of present and future changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere in relation to global warming and ozone depletion; effects of cloud and cloud feedbacks in the climate system; paleoclimate reconstructions from ice cores, banded corals, tree-rings, and deep-sea sediments; the origin of ice ages; air-sea interactions; climate theory; terrestrial and marine ecosystem response to global change.

Physical Oceanography is the field of study that deals with mechanisms of energy transfer through the sea and across its boundaries, and with the physical interactions of the sea with its surroundings, especially including the influence of the seas on the climate of the atmosphere. Research activities within this curricular group are both observational and theoretical and include: study of the general circulation of the oceans, including the relations of ocean currents to driving forces and constraints of the ocean basins; fluctuations of currents, and the transport of properties; the mechanisms of transport of energy, momentum, and physical substances within the sea and across its boundaries; properties of wind waves, internal waves, tsunami and planetary waves; the thermodynamic description of the sea as a system not in equilibrium; optical and acoustic properties of the sea; and the influence of surf on near-shore currents and the transport of sediments.

Geosciences of the Earth, Oceans and Planets (GEO)

 Geosciences emphasize the application of general principles of geology, geochemistry, and geophysics to problems in the marine and terrestrial environments of the Earth. Graduate students routinely participate in expeditions at sea and on land and many doctoral theses evolve from these experiences.

Research areas in the geological sciences include: the origin and evolution of the ocean-atmosphere system and global climate; geology, geochemistry, and geophysics of oceanic crustal rocks and near-shore environments; tectonic and structural evolution of the oceans, plate margins, and back-arc basins; the role of fluids in the crust; chemistry of rare gases in active volcanoes; the use of natural nuclear processes for understanding physical and chemical processes in the Earth; paleomagnetic applications in geology and geophysics.

Geophysics emphasizes the application of general principles of mathematics and experimental physics to fundamental problems of the oceans, the oceanic and continental lithosphere, the cryosphere, and the crust and deep interior of the Earth. Research interests of the group include: observational and theoretical studies of electric and magnetic fields in the oceans and on the land; paleomagnetism; theoretical seismology with special emphasis on the structure of the Earth from free-oscillation and body wave studies; broadband observational seismology, including ocean bottom and multichannel seismology; earthquake source mechanisms; the measurements of slow crustal deformations using satellite and observatory methods on continents and in the oceans; marine geodynamics and tectonophysics; gravity measurements; geophysical inverse theory; observations of the ice sheets; magnetohydrodynamics of the core of the Earth; geophysical instrumentation for oceanic and continental geophysical measurements; acoustic propagation in the oceans.

Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry concerns chemical and geochemical processes operating in a broad range of study areas: the oceans, the solid earth, the atmosphere, marine organisms, polar ice sheets, lakes, meteorites, and the solar system. Areas of advanced study and research include the physical and inorganic chemistry of seawater; ocean circulation and mixing based on chemical and isotopic tracers; marine organic and natural products chemistry; marine bioinorganic chemistry; geochemical interactions of sediments with seawater and interstitial waters; geochemistries of volcanic and geothermal phenomena; chemical exchanges between the ocean and the atmosphere; geochemical cycles of carbon, oxygen, sulfur, nitrogen, and other elements; isotopic geochemistry of the solid earth and meteorites; atmospheric trace gas chemistry; paleoatmospheric composition recorded in polar ice cores, corals and sediments; and chemistry of lakes and other freshwater systems.

Studies are typically interdisciplinary and involve integration of chemical concepts with information about the physical, biological, or geological processes that influence natural systems. Students in the marine chemistry and geochemistry curricular group are encouraged to explore these links.

Ocean Biosciences Program (OBP)

 Biological Oceanography is concerned with the interactions of populations of marine organisms with one another and with their physical and chemical environment. Because these interactions are frequently complex, and because the concepts and techniques used are drawn from many fields, biological oceanography is, of necessity, interdisciplinary. Therefore, studies in physical oceanography, marine chemistry, marine geology, and several biological areas are pertinent. Research is conducted on space/time scales ranging from short-term interactions between individual organisms (mm., sec.) to interdecadal variation in widely dispersed populations. The techniques used in these investigations are diverse, and can include field observation and manipulations, experimentation in the laboratory, and mathematical modeling. Research topics include primary and secondary productivity and nutrient regeneration, fishery biology and management, community ecology of benthic and pelagic organisms, population dynamics, habitat changes and disruptions, systematics and biogeography, population genetics and evolution, and behavior as it affects distribution. Development and testing of new tools (molecular, optical, acoustic), design of sampling programs, and statistical/mathematical analyses of data also are significant activities.

Marine Biology is the study of marine organisms. It is concerned with evolutionary, organismic, genetic, genomic, physiological, and biochemical processes in these organisms, and the relationship between them and their biotic and physical environment. Marine biology encompasses several major areas of modern biology, and is interpreted by understanding the physical and chemical dynamics of the oceans. Faculty research focuses on microbiology, photobiology, invertebrate biology, vertebrate biology, high pressure biology, deep-sea biology, developmental biology, genetics, comparative biochemistry, eco-toxicology, physiology, behavior, ecology, biogeography, taxonomy, and evolution. Processes ranging from coral larvae recruitment to the role of bacteria in marine food web dynamics are under study in over twenty independent research laboratories.