USF Marine Science Live Cam
Situated at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science
The Origins of Marine Science on the Bay
In the early 1960s, the Tampa Bay region was a frontier for marine research, with scattered field stations and modest laboratories tucked along the shore. Visionaries at the University of South Florida recognized the strategic value of Pinellas County’s waterfront: a natural estuary rich with seagrass meadows, mangrove shorelines, and dynamic tidal flows. By 1964, the fledgling Division of Marine Science established its first campus on St. Petersburg’s Bayboro Harbor, housed in repurposed shipping warehouses and simple wooden docks. Back then, graduate students waded into shallow flats armed with basic water samplers and Secchi disks, laying the groundwork for what would become one of the nation’s premier oceanographic institutes.
