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| Research Facilities The Masters and Doctoral Programs in the Marine Sciences are located on the main campus of the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama and at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. Resources on the main campus
provide complete capabilities for physiological and biochemical
research, including HPLCs; a liquid scintillation counter; a preparative
high-speed centrifuge; an ultracentrifuge; FT-IR, AA, and UV-VIS
spectrophotometers; a potentiostat/galvanostat for corrosior measurements;
a lyophilizer; gel electrophoresis equipment, a surface area analyzer,
a respirometer; equipment for measuring crystallization both in
vitro and in vivo; and computers for data acquisition and management. The capability for automated solid-phase synthesis and sequencing of peptides and a complete image analysis sytem based on Leitz DIC epifluorescence photomicroscopic are available. Facilities also include culture and aquarium equipment. The Department of Geology and Geography offers and X-ray diffractometer, apparatus for optic analysis, a particular counter, and an inductively coupled plasmaemission spectrometer for elemental analysis. The graduate programs also utilizes the resources of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL), located only 35 miles south of the main campus. DISL provides covenient access to a diversity of coastal and nearshore marine habitats, including a tidal deltal, estuarine salt marshes, oyster reefes, seagrass habitats, low to high-energy shorelines, and barrier islands in the north -central Gulf of Mexico In near coastal waters, offshore "hard bottom" habitats containing hard and soft corals provide unique benthic habitats which support a vaiety of tropical species, while the continental shelf provides an important mixing zone for waters from Mobile Bay with those of the Gulf and the Gulf Stream Loop Current offshore. Several national refuge/reserve systems including the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, located on a sub estuary of Mobile Bay, the Bon Sccour National Wildlife Refuge and the Gulf Islands National Seashore provide protected areas for long-term scientific research in the immediate vicinity. The DISL campus accommodates some 200 students during summer. The MESC maintains two research vessels in addition to several small boats and skiffs and is equipped with standard field gear for biological, geological, and chemical sampling. A new wet lab facility was recently completed, designed to improve the queality and control of experimental work on living marine organisms. Modern laboratories house equipment that includes an ultralow-temperature freezer, a high-spped refrigerated centrifuge, a CNS analyzer, an HPLC, a scintillation counter, spectrophotometers, a nutrient autoanalyzer, a profiling CTD/current meter, an experimental flume with controlled water flow, a TOC/DOC analyzer, and light and temperature controlled incubators. The DISL library is a highly specialized collection in the marine sciences of more than 4,500 bound volumes and subscriptions to a wide selection of marine science journals.
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