1. Paleoceanography and Paleoenvironment

This field focuses on tropical carbon cycle and western boundary currents in west Pacific marginal seas and the Warm Pool area, and explores the role of the seas in global evolution of climatic environment and its impact on China. Concurrent with studies of deep sea sedimentary records are attempts of modern process observation and numerical modeling of environmental changes.

2. Marine Biogeochemistry

Involved with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program and the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), this field focuses on research areas about the tracing geochemical proxies in paleoceanography, the deep sea microorganism and their biogeochemical impacts, and exploring submarine geology and mineralization mechanism and issues related to carbon cycle and biological evolution. 

3. Marine Sedimentology

Integrating marine science and geology, this field explores weathering and erosion, mass transport and the “source to sink” process of sedimentation. Other researches include observing and analyzing the sedimentary dynamic process and mechanism in the deep sea and exploring the coupling relationship among tectonic uplift, climate change, weathering- erosion process at the provenances.

4. Oceanic Lithosphere Evolution

This field focuses on evolution of continental margin and oceanic lithosphere, marginal basin expansion and other related geological processes which play an extremely important role in the evolution of the earth. Through integrating geological, geophysical and geochemical methods, this field is dedicated to studying key issues on the continental margin structure, evolution of oceanic lithosphere and hydrothermal mineralization.  

5. Submarine Resources and Geophysics

This field targets on natural resources such as oil and gas and gas hydrate in deep seas and adjacent land areas, explores forward modeling and inversion theories and new techniques in geophysical surveys using marine seismic, gravimetric, magnetic and electromagnetic measurements, and carries out integrated geological and geophysical studies for exploring marine energy reserves.