UCSC Institute of Marine Sciences

The Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) is a unique collaborative effort to increase our knowledge of the world's oceans, the complex processes that affect their behavior, their fascinating inhabitants and to understand their economic importance and also the impact people and changing environmental conditions and climate have on them.

Long Marine Lab on the Santa Cruz coast

Their researchers ask questions that are as old as the ocean basins and as current as today's weather. And their renowned faculty and researchers conduct investigations as close to home as Monterey Bay and as distant as the ice shelves of Antarctica and the deep-sea floor around the margins of the Pacific Basin.

IMS is helping our students conduct high-level research on topics like climate change and biodiversity.

Learn More

IMS marine vertebrate biologists at work

The Mentor

An aerial view of the IMS Long Marine Lab