海洋学家研究与物理，数学，生物学，化学和海洋地质有关的基本和应用问题，这些问题通常涉及传统学科。独立进行的研究以及与联邦政府实验室合作进行的研究都发生在许多不同的海洋学体系中，包括不列颠哥伦比亚省沿海峡湾，乔治亚海峡的内陆海域，亚北极太平洋的开放海域以及包括北极和太平洋在内的许多其他地区。南极海洋。可以研究的问题类型包括有关分层流体在几十米至数千公里范围内流动的基本问题，在河口，沿海和深海过程中的应用研究，一般的海洋环流和气候变化问题，海洋化学，地球化学和生物地球化学，天然产物化学，海洋病毒，渔业海洋学，
Oceanographers investigate both fundamental and applied problems relating to the physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, and geology of the sea, often working across traditional academic disciplines. Research carried out both independently and in collaboration with federal government laboratories occurs in many different oceanographic regimes, including coastal BC fjords, the inland sea of the Strait of Georgia, open ocean regions of the Subarctic Pacific, and many other locations, including the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. The types of problems that can be studied include fundamental questions about the flow of stratified fluids at scales ranging from tens of meters to thousands of kilometers, applied research in estuaries, coastal, and deep-ocean processes, general ocean circulation and climate change issues, marine chemistry, geochemistry, and biogeochemistry, natural product chemistry, marine viruses, fisheries oceanography, plankton ecology and physiology, and primary production of the sea. The Department is well equipped to carry out research in the field (using either its own boat or larger vessels in the oceanographic fleet), at the laboratory bench, and in the numerical heart of a computer. Most problems involve aspects of all three.