Ocean science has long been interdisciplinary. Each great ocean feature has a physical, chemical, biological, and geological signature. Phenomena associated with these features have led curious scientists to collaborate on important questions. One example is the investigation by physical and biological oceanographers of warm- and cold-core eddies (rings) spun off the Gulf Stream in a well-known sequence of productive, coupled projects in the 1980s (Ring Group, 1981). The interactions among investigators from different disciplines were crucial to developing the inherent understanding of the ring phenomena as well as their biological and physical ramifications.

Powell, T.M. 2008. The rise of interdisciplinary oceanography. Oceanography 21(3):54–57, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2008.35.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.