Chemical Oceanography Curriculum
The course work requirements for Chemical Oceanography graduate students are outlined below. As an individual student's program must also reflect their background and areas of interest, waivers for School of Oceanography breadth requirements should be referred to the Graduate Program Coordinator, and waivers to Chemical Oceanography option requirements may be granted by the advisory/supervisory committee.
If the required core courses are not offered in the first 8 quarters of enrollment, students should consult with their adviser and committee to develop a plan to complete the required coursework or petition to have the requirement(s) waived.
CHEMICAL OCEANOGRAPHY FOUNDATION COURSE (required)
OCEAN 520 Marine Chemistry (3). Processes controlling the chemical composition of seawater. Chemical distributions in the ocean, marine physical chemistry, chemical equilibrium, and concepts of mass balance. Mechanisms and models used to explain distributions of stable and radioactive isotopes, gases, trace metals, and biochemicals in the world's oceans.
CHEMICAL OCEANOGRAPHY OPTION COURSES (Complete 3 before Master's degree and 6 before Doctoral degree)
OCEAN 521 Aquatic Chemistry (3). Application of physical chemistry and thermodynamics to processes that control chemical composition of natural waters. Equilibrium approach. Acid/base chemistry, the carbonate system, dissolution and precipitation, metal ions in solution, oxidation-reduction chemistry, silicate mineral reactions.
OCEAN 529 Ocean Biogeochemical Modeing (3). Introduction to ocean biogeochemical modeling with an emphasis on the carbon, oxygen and nitrogen cycles.
OCEAN 529 Trace Metal Biogeochemistry (3). Sources, sinks, internal cycling, and applications of trace metal distributions and isotopes to problems in chemical oceanography. This course covers the cycling of trace metals in the marine environment, their use in biological processes, their applications as tracers, and their role as important paleo proxies.
OCEAN 522 Marine Organic Geochemistry (3). Sources, reactions, and fates of organic molecules in the marine environment along with the stable isotope geochemistry of marine organic substances.
OCEAN 554 Paleoclimate Proxies (3). Provides a critical evaluation of the most commonly applied paleoclimate proxies from the ocean, land, and ice sheets.
OCEAN 583 Isotope Biogeochemistry (3). The use of stable isotopes to study biogeochemical cycles in the oceans and atmosphere; specifically carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles. Isotopic effects during photosynthesis, respiration, organic matter degradation. CaCO3 dissolution, methanogenesis, nitrification/denitrification, and sulfate reduction.
SEMINARS
There is a weekly seminar in Chemical Oceanography. Students are required to attend and encouraged to present the results of their research after their first two years. In addition, courses on special topics of interest are offered as OCEAN 529, Seminar in Chemical Oceanography.
OTHER COURSES
There are many other courses available inside and outside of the department that may give students a broader perspective on other facets of oceanography, data processing, science communication, or analytical techniques. Examples of additional courses that are common for chemical oceanography students to take are listed below.
FISH 552 Introduction To R Programming For Natural Scientists (2). Introduces R, a freely available and widely used platform for statistical analysis. Covers reading, storing, and manipulating data; introductory graphics; basic statistical analyses; and fitting linear models.
FISH 553 Advanced R Programming For Natural Scientists (2). Covers the use of maximum likelihood estimation and programming in R. Uses R functions to estimate parameters of models and to quantify uncertainty.
FISH 554 Beautiful Graphics In R (2). Explores how to create beautiful scientific graphics in the open-source language R. Covers the theory of visualization, critically examines elements of good and bad graphics, and teaches students how to translate data in their graduate theses into publication-quality graphics.
FISH 560 Applied Multivariate Statistics For Ecologists (4). Use and interpretation of multivariate analysis, including the majority of approaches in common use by ecologists. Emphasizes the conceptual understanding and practical use of the methods, illustrated with ecological case studies.
MEDCH 541 Biological Mass Spectrometry (3). Covers the basics of modern ionization methods and mass analyzers; small molecule structure assignment, quantitative assay development by LC-MS and metabolomics; quantitative discovery-based proteomics and validation methods; and peptide sequence determination, post-translational modification mapping, and protein structure determination methods.
OCEAN 518 Scientific Writing And Graphics (2). Covers principles of scientific writing; methods of ensuring clarity in writing for scientific journals and research proposals; principles of graph construction; and authorship, peer review, and citations. For graduate students in Earth-science related fields.
CENV 590: Applied Improvisation for Science Communications
MICROM 431 Prokaryotic Recombinant DNA Techniques (3). Laboratory course emphasizing concepts and techniques/methodologies in recombinant DNA research employing bacteria and their viruses. Topics and experiments/demonstrations include genomic and plasmid DNA isolation, restriction mapping, cloning, transposon mutagenesis, sequencing, and Western and Southern blotting.
SCHOOL OF OCEANOGRAPHY BREADTH REQUIREMENTS
Every graduate student is required to take a minimum of one 3-credit, numerically-graded, 500-level course from each option outside their own for a total of three courses and 9 credits (Ocean 510, Ocean 535, Ocean 540). The student may petition to substitute for one of these courses. The student is expected to complete this breadth requirement prior to receiving a Master's degree. The Academic Affairs committee will address any requests for waivers. The extent to which a student should take courses in other oceanography options or related fields beyond this minimum will be decided by the student’s advisory or supervisory committee and the student.
CONCURRENT DEGREES and OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
Graduate students can also choose, in consultation with their committee, to complete concurrent graduate degrees, certificates or options at the University of Washington. Graduate students in chemical oceanography have completed the following concurrent programs.
