Selected Facilities and Oceanographic Collections

The numerous facilities and collections at Scripps are used for both teaching and research. Several of these are available to those outside the Scripps community for free or a fee.

Preserved Marine Vertebrates

This collection contains approximately two million specimens, with more than 4,500 cataloged species, including 170 primary types. About 200 specimens are added each year. Although the collection contains specimens from throughout the world, deep-sea and pelagic fishes as well as eastern Pacific shore fishes are emphasized. Included are large holdings of shore fishes from the Gulf of California and Panama.

Live Fishes and Invertebrates

The Birch Aquarium at Scripps is devoted to increasing public understanding and appreciation of ocean sciences through exhibits of living marine animals, museum exhibits, and a variety of educational programs.

Open to the public, the aquarium features approximately 3,000 fishes from the Pacific Northwest; southern California; Baja California, Mexico; and various tropical seas. A 70,000-gallon tank displays a kelp forest, and an outdoor exhibit offers a close-up look at a local tide-pool habitat.

Benthic Marine Invertebrates

The collection contains some 50,000 lots of specimens sorted into major taxonomic groups. All are cataloged with collection data, and more than 35% are identified to species.

Planktonic Marine Invertebrates

One of the world’s preeminent collections of marine zooplankton, including approximately 95,000 whole zooplankton samples representing most sectors of the global oceans. Particular geographic strengths are the North and South Pacific, Indo-West Pacific oceans, and antarctic waters. Approximately 31,000 sorted, identified reference specimens of some of the major planktonic taxa are available.

Geological Cores and Dredge Collections

These collections contain several thousand deep-sea sediment cores and rock samples collected during 50 years of Scripps oceanographic expeditions. Preserved under refrigeration, the sediment cores provide an excellent record of faunal distributions and geological and climatic events. The dredge collection includes igneous rocks, manganese nodules, and lithified sediments.

Deep Sea Drilling Project / Ocean Drilling Program / Micropaleontological Reference Center

This collection contains more than 6,000 foraminiferan preparations, as well as 3,000 nanofossil, 3,000 radiolarian, and 2,500 diatom and related lithologic microscope slides. Materials collected during Legs 1—129 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project/Ocean Drilling Program include fauna from throughout the global ocean basins of various geologic ages and provenances.

Research Fleet

Scripps operates a fleet of four oceangoing research vessels, one research platform, and several smaller craft. Since the institution’s first major ocean expedition in 1950, Scripps scientists and students have logged more than five million miles on expeditions.

Diving Facility

The diving program offers support to the Scripps scientific diving and diver training program, and provides facilities for dressing rooms, equipment storage, and air compressors, as well as an overhaul and repair shop.

Scripps Pier

The 1,090-foot Scripps pier provides a stable platform for observations, data gathering, and other scientific work, in addition to being a launch station for small boats. It also houses pumps that supply seawater to laboratory aquaria and the display tanks at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Underwater Research Areas

The nearshore waters adjacent to the Scripps campus include areas that have been set aside specifically for research. More than 530 acres near the campus are designated a marine ecological reserve.

Scripps Library

One of the world’s largest marine science collections, the Scripps Library contains outstanding collections in oceanography, marine biology, and marine technology. It also specializes in atmospheric sciences, fisheries, geology, geophysics, and zoology. As a branch of the UCSD library system, it receives more than 3,400 serials and has a cataloged collection of some 230,000 volumes, as well as a large collection of atlases, nautical charts, and geologic and topographic maps.

Analytical Facility

Instruments at this facility include X-ray diffraction systems, an automated X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, an atomic absorption/fluorescence spectrometer with heated graphite atomizer, a DNA sequencer, gas chromatographs, gas chromatograph/mass spectrometers, carbon/carbon dioxide analyzers, a superconducting nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer, a Cambridge S360 scanning electron microscope, and a Cameca 3-scanner electron microprobe. The facility also offers complete sample preparation laboratories and geological field equipment.

Experimental Aquarium

Used for studies of living plants and animals, the experimental aquarium is provided with ambient and chilled seawater and is equipped with rooms for controlled environmental studies, tanks, and seawater tables.

Hydraulics Laboratory

The laboratory has a wind-wave channel with a tow cart for instrument and model towing, a two-layer stratified flow channel, a wave-and-tidal basin with an adjustable simulated beach, a wave-and-current channel, a granular fluid mechanics test facility, a fluidizing channel, and a variety of special water tanks.

Petrological Laboratory

The facility provides thin-sectioning, microprobe sample preparation, and rock-surfacing services. All types of submarine and subaerial materials are prepared using plastic-vacuum techniques and other methods of impregnation.

Mass Spectrographic Equipment

Nine mass spectrometers are available for a variety of analysis techniques.

Computer Resources

Virtually every office and laboratory at Scripps is fully connected to the UCSD campus network and the Internet. High-speed modem and ISDN dial-in facilities are available for network access from off-campus.

Supercomputing support at the San Diego Supercomputer Center is available. Currently, the machines available are an 8-processor Cray C90, a Cray T3-D, and a 400-node Intel Paragon.