Origin and evolution of the oceans, plate tectonics, ocean circulation, waves and tides, seawater and sediment composition, and influences on biology. Three lecture and three laboratory hours per week. Scheduled field trips required.

Carolina Core: SCI

Origin, evolution, and diversity of marine life, biological production, trophic dynamics, nutrient cycles, marine resources, and environmental concerns. Three lecture and three laboratory hours per week. Scheduled field trips required.

Carolina Core: SCI

A nontechnical introduction to human interactions with the marine environment: marine organisms, marine systems, and the physical and chemical characteristics of oceans and estuaries. Not available for marine science major credit.

Carolina Core: SCI

Experiments and exercises which illustrate how specific components of marine environments are structured, function, and can be measured. Two laboratory hours per week. Not available for marine science major credit. Attendance on designated field trips may be required.

Carolina Core: SCI

Coastal zones of South Carolina and neighboring states, including geologic history, geomorphology, stratigraphy, hydrogeology, shoreline processes, environmental issues, and effects of man. Not available for geological science or marine science major credit. Three lecture hours each week plus optional field trips.

Carolina Core: SCI

Exercises examining coastal ecology, geomorphology, hydrogeology, shoreline processes, environmental issues, and human impact. Not available for marine science major credit. Two laboratory hours per week. Scheduled field trips required.

Carolina Core: SCI

Instrumentation, oceanographic time series, spatial and directional data sets, and basic parametric modeling.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Biological concepts emphasizing adaptation to marine environments. Laboratory experiments emphasize principles and techniques of marine biological study. Three lecture and three laboratory hours per week. Scheduled field trips are required.

Biogeochemical cycling, carbonate chemistry, climate change, hydrothermal vents, stable isotopes, trace metals, radioactive tracers, mass balance, and properties of sea water. Three lecture and three laboratory hours per week.

Properties of seawater, mass and momentum balances, circulation, mixing, waves and other processes in the marine environment.

The science of global change, its relation to the hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. Global system science, biogeochemical cycles, paleoclimatology, glaciation, and eustacy.

Exploration of post-graduation opportunities in academia and industry. Interactive discussion of topics including helping skills, active listening, oral communication, goal setting, interviewing, and building a strong professional portfolio.

Cross-listed course: ENVR 360, GEOL 360

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Leadership Experiences

Computational analysis of earth, marine, and environmental datasets applying time series analysis, regression, filtering, and statistical analysis.

Cross-listed course: ENVR 365, GEOL 365

The Deep Sea is an interdisciplinary, scientific survey of the geology, biology, chemistry, and physical setting of the deep-sea (more than 1000 m depth).

Analysis of past and current issues in global and national marine policy. Relationship between science and policymakers.

Contract approved by instructor, advisor, and department chair is required for undergraduate students.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Principles and methods of measuring production in the sea. Emphasis on the ocean’s role in the global carbon budget. Three lecture hours per week. Scheduled field trips are required.

Intensive inquiry-based investigations combining oceanographic field sampling with laboratory measurements of collected samples using modern analytical instrumentation, and with analysis and integration of data into a final research report. Most of the course is conducted in residence at a marine field site.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Professional and Civic Engagement Internships, GLD: Research

Internship experience that offers practical field or laboratory experience in oceanography and/or related marine sciences. Course content varies and will be announced by title in schedule of courses. Usually conducted off campus and student must be able to access internship on their own.

Student research on problems of fundamental significance in collaboration with faculty mentors. Emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, proposal development, scientific writing, and professional presentation. Nine hours of laboratory, field, or library work per week.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Student research on problems of fundamental significance in collaboration with faculty mentors. Emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, proposal development, scientific writing, and professional presentation. Nine hours of laboratory, field, or library work per week.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Student research on problems of fundamental significance in collaboration with faculty mentors. Emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, proposal development, scientific writing, and professional presentation. Nine hours of laboratory, field, or library work per week.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Student research on problems of fundamental significance in collaboration with faculty mentors. Emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, proposal development, scientific writing, and professional presentation. Nine hours of laboratory, field, or library work per week.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

The process of earth denudation with emphasis on chemistry of weathering, stream and erosion hydraulics, quantitative analysis of land form evolution.

Geological and physical controls on the morphology, development, and stability of coastlines. Analysis of waves and erosional processes, and coastal zone morphodynamics. Several required field trips.

An overview of the microbial world including a survey of the distribution, functioning, and diversity of microorganisms in natural systems. Discusses the crucial roles that microorganisms play in ecosystem function, biogeochemical cycles, and environmental quality.

Cross-listed course: BIOL 502, ENVR 503

This course will discuss the urgent need for deploying solar radiation and carbon dioxide removal approaches at scale, including potential benefits and risks of these options. It will also discuss regulatory and governance considerations at both the national and international level and strategizes to incentivize large-scale adoption of these approaches.

Cross-listed course: ENVR 504, GEOL 504

MATLAB-based course in processing, analysis, and visualization of large oceanographic data sets. Includes scalar and vector time series measured at fixed locations as well as shipboard surveys of oceanographic characteristics varying both in 3-D and in time. Methods and techniques are relevant to other geoscience disciplines.

Phylogenetic and comparative aspects of anatomy, physiology, reproduction, and embryology of the invertebrates. Three lecture and one three-hour laboratory period per week.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Systematic, ecologic, biogeographic, and evolutionary aspects of paleontology; lectures, practical exercises, field trips.

Marine microfossils; distribution, ecology, paleoecology, and biostratigraphy; use of microfossils in marine sediments to study oceanographic history. Three lectures and two laboratory hours per week.

Investigation of low temperature chemical reactions controlling the geochemistry of the earth’s surface. Emphasis on CO2, carbonates, oxidation-reduction, thermodynamics, isotopes, biogeochemistry.

Introduction to radioactivity and the use of radionuclides to study environmental processes, including age-dating and biogeochemical cycling in aquatic systems.

Diversity, distribution, physiology, ecology, evolution, and economic importance of marine algal, seagrass, and mangrove communities. Three lecture and three laboratory hours per week. Scheduled field trips are required.

Management and conservation of aquatic and marine resources, with emphasis on fisheries. Data procurement and analysis; commercial and recreational fisheries; sociological, political, legal, and environmental factors that affect fishery management; and fish biodiversity.

Phylogeny, morphology, behavior, and ecology of fishes. Three lecture and 3 laboratory hours plus three field trips to be arranged.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Introduction to the practical and scientific aspects of the commercial culture of freshwater and marine organisms. Three lecture hours per week. One all-day field trip required.

The identification of behavioral adaptations of estuarine and marine organisms: their ecology, physiology, development, and evolutionary history; field observations.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

A comprehensive study of the origin and development of the major structural features of the ocean basins and the continental margins. Discussion of the techniques used in obtaining geologic data and the interpretation of sedimentary processes, vulcanism, and the stratigraphy of the ocean basins.

Problems of sequence stratigraphy resolved with graphic computer simulations. Sedimentary fill of basins by carbonates and/or clastics tracked as a function of rate of sediment accumulation, tectonic behavior, and sea level. Includes laboratory.

An introduction to the principles of population genetics, with emphasis on the origin, maintenance, and significance of genetic variation in natural populations.

Graduation with Leadership Distinction: GLD: Research

Marine sedimentary environments; physical/biological factors which control the formation and distribution of modern marine sediments.

Introduces the field of conservation and explores the intersection between conservation and environmental health with a particular focus on coastal and marine case studies.

Physical and geological processes controlling the formation and evolution of beach, barrier, and nearshore environments, including discussion of coastal management issues.

The formulation and simulation of compartment models of marine and terrestrial ecosystems with complex nutrient cycling, food chains, and energy flow. Analog and digital simulation techniques. Ecosystem stability and sensitivity. Organization, structure, and diversity of an ecosystem.

Small-scale processes in the atmospheric boundary layers, including energy budget, radiation, soil heat transfer, humidity, viscous flows, turbulence, momentum and heat exchanges, evaporation, and marine atmospheric boundary layer.

Exploration of how human activities affect marine natural populations, species, communities and ecosystems, including threats to biodiversity; approaches to marine conservation; and ecological and evolutionary responses to anthropogenic disturbance.

Structure, dynamics, and interactions between populations and communities in marine ecosystems. Attendance at designated departmental seminars is required. Three lecture hours per week.

Laboratory and field exercises in coastal environments. Three hours per week plus field trips.

Interdisciplinary examination of the distribution, reproduction, survival, and historical variation of the principal commercial marine fisheries.

Structure, productivity, and biodiversity of coral reefs, emphasizing their sensitivity, stability, and sustainability. Taught as an extended field experience with daily lectures and guided research activities.

Functional adaptation of marine plants and animals to ecological stresses including pollution. Three lecture hours per week.

The physical mechanism responsible for interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere and the influence of air-sea interaction on atmospheric and oceanic dynamics and thermodynamics on a wide variety of spatial/temporal scales.

This course provides knowledge of various techniques used in satellite remote sensing of the oceans. Key skills will be developed in satellite data processing, image analysis, and hands-on research.

Estuarine kinematics and dynamics; classification of estuaries; estuarine circulation and mixing. Scheduled field trips are required.

Basic principles of fluid statics and dynamics. Conservation of mass, momentum, and energy; viscosity, vorticity, and boundary layers with examples from the marine environment. Applications to and analysis of ocean currents and waves.

Geological and geochemical processes in salt marshes. Methods of geological research in marshes including instrumental techniques, sampling design, and data analysis. Two lectures per week plus four weekends of project oriented fieldwork and/or equivalent lab work. Scheduled field trips are required.

Descriptive oceanography of mangrove and coral reef coasts with emphasis on physical processes. Taught as an extended field experience with daily lectures and guided research activities.

Influence of wind on coastal systems, with emphasis on nearshore currents, sediment transport and bedforms, aeolian transport, and dunes. Minimum Junior standing required.

Current developments in marine science selected to meet faculty and student interests. Course content varies and will be announced by title in schedule of courses.

Study of the chemical reactions and processes affecting the distribution of chemical species in natural systems. Three lecture hours per week.

Examines the physiology and ecology of phytoplankton, including environmental controls on community composition, primary productivity, and detection and characterization of water quality (eutrophication) and harmful algal blooms.