Scripps Oceanographic
Collections
World-renowned repositories of marine organisms and geological samples supporting scientific research, education, and governmental agencies and public policy makers.
Our Collections
Marine Vertebrate
One of the largest collections of deep-sea and pelagic fishes in the world, as well as one of the premiere collections of shore fishes from the eastern Pacific.
Pelagic Invertebrate
One of the world's preeminent collections of marine zooplankton, housing more than 140,000 whole zooplankton samples. Among these are the remarkable CalCOFI zooplankton time series, which has surveyed the California Current since 1949.
Benthic Invertebrate
With extensive holdings from the deep sea, chemosynthetic ecosystems, and the eastern Pacific, the collection supports biodiversity research in some of the ocean's most unexplored and extreme environments.
Geological
Among the largest collections of marine geology samples in the United States. Scripps holds about 7,000 deep ocean cores, about 4,000 dredges of deep-sea rocks, and about 40,000 marine microfossil slides, and a teaching collection of about 10,000 samples of rocks, fossils, and minerals.
Support the Collections
Friends of the Collections support the largest and most complete university-based oceanographic collection in the world, comprised of millions of biological and geological marine specimens. This library of the ocean’s history is a resource to researchers and students all over the world.
Geological Data Center
The Geological Data Center has been archiving and providing access to marine geological data, particularly from Scripps vessels, for more than 40 years. While the collection contains many historic physical artifacts, the current emphasis is on digital data management.