CalCOFI Station Explorer is a data discovery tool built by Ben Best and Betty Huang, under the direction of Dr. Erin Satterthwaite, in partnership with CalCOFI and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It builds on an earlier prototype developed as part of the UCSB Data Science Student Capstone.

The Station Explorer aggregates metadata across CalCOFI's integrated release database — 12 datasets spanning physical oceanography, nutrients and carbonate chemistry, phytoplankton and zooplankton, fish larvae and eggs, and seabirds and marine mammals — to help you find what's measured, where, and when.

What you can do here

• Browse by category or by dataset from the panel on the right — each entry expands to show its variables, grouped by measurement so related readings from different instruments or datasets (e.g. bottle vs. CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) temperature) sit together.
• Click any station on the map for its full coverage: which datasets have data there, observations by year, and seasonality by month.
• Search by name — common or scientific — with results grouped by category.
• Filter by year range with the slider; stations with coverage for a selected parameter highlight on the map, and a marker on the slider shows that parameter's own actual data span.