Physical Facilities

The Institute's 83,000 sq. ft. central complex is located on 72 acres of beach-front land and consists of a series of interconnected buildings containing laboratories, classrooms, televideo instruction room, offices, a library, museum, exhibit halls, visitor's center, auditorium, seminar rooms, and workshops. 

A 10,000 sq. ft. wet-laboratory is supplied with filtered running seawater. Other structures on the grounds of the Institute include 9,500 sq. ft. of dormitories, a cafeteria, physical plant complex, garages, greenhouses, walk-in freezers, and several outdoor pool/habitat tanks. The five-acre boat basin provides quick access for our research vessels to both the bay systems and the Gulf of Mexico.  The basin has been certified as a Clean Texas Marina by voluntarily adopting practices and measures to control pollution and to embrace the conservation ethic of individual responsibility for healthy land and water.

A new research pier allows direct access for research projects in the Aransas Pass tidal inlet connecting the Gulf with the bays. This 300 foot pier has a 1200 sq. ft. lab at its base and a 150 sq. ft. instrument room on the end. The terminus of the pier and instrument room house a weather station, tide gauge, current meter, and sensors for water temperature and salinity, all of which are transmitted to real time data displays in the Visitor's Center and main laboratory. The pier also has an electric winch for deploying sampling equipment such as plankton nets and large-mesh tide traps to study fluxes of biota through the inlet. 

A mile west of the main building complex, the Fisheries and Mariculture Laboratory (FAML) occupies 26,000 sq. ft. of buildings on 10 acres adjacent to the ship channel. This facility includes four large laboratories which provide for temperature and photoperiod control. The FAML complex provides facilities for research on spawning and rearing of marine finfish and crustaceans and affords unique opportunities for research utilizing captive animals. Both the main laboratories and the FAML facility have office and laboratory space available for visiting scientists. 

Created: Thu Feb 1 15:10:47 CST 2001