The Study of the Seas

As with our human bodies, the planet we inhabit is made up of mostly water. The Earth's oceans contain 96% of the planet's water supply, covering 70% of the Earth's surface, and encompassing mysteries that, until relatively recently, have remained untouched by scientists. Oceanography is a developing field of science, devoted to researching the life, structures, and cycles of the deep seas.

The job description of an oceanographer is diverse. The oceanographer could be assigned work at sea, near the coast, in the laboratory, or a mixture of all three. The oceanographer can be in the water, under the water, or on a research cruise for several months. Most of these scientists are supported by large research or government agencies, although some private oceanography companies exist. If interested in the field of oceanography as a career, a student has three main branches of oceanography to choose from:

Biological Oceanographers/Marine Biologists: Biological oceanographers study the many types of life in the oceans, monitoring population trends, food webs, and the oceanic processes and environmental factors affecting marine organisms. A biological oceanographer studies the ocean as a system, taking a multidisciplinary approach and assessing the oceans and the life in it as a complicated, interactive system. Though often overlapping in job descriptions, marine biologists are primarily concerned in researching individual organisms, and discovering different facets of an organism's biology. An understanding of biochemistry, ocean physics, chemistry, and geology is needed by the biological oceanographer to hypothesize and conduct experiments concerning the complex oceanic ecosystem.

Geological Oceanographers: The geological oceanographer has the opportunity to explore the deepest parts of the ocean, studying the rocks and structures that make up the ocean floor. Studies have been conducted on the "deep volcanism" occurring with plates and rifts in the ocean's floor, allowing molten lava to secrete through and form great volcanic structures far below the water's surface. Geological oceanographers also study seismicity of the subsurface ocean floor, erosion, sedimentation, the ocean's crust, and the various ridges, trenches, and other structures that are continually fashioned.

Physical/Chemical Oceanographers: These oceanographers are concerned with the fluid movement and processes of the ocean, studying such ocean properties as

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