Argo Hall

Argo is a six-story building which accommodates approximately 350 students, with a Resident Assistant on each floor. Each of the five residential floors has six suites and each suite houses between 12 and 16 students (primarily in triple rooms) who share two lounge areas and a bathroom. 

Argo Hall is named after a converted Navy rescue ship commissioned in 1960 by Scripps Institution of Oceanography (aka Scripps Institution) at UC San Diego and used for a decade. Roger Revelle gave a speech at the ceremony of the commissioning and reminded everyone that the name was chosen from the Greek mythological vessel; Jason's Argo sailed from Greece to Colchis in search of the golden fleece, this being the first oceanographic expedition.

Blake Hall

Blake is a four-story building which accommodates approximately 180 students, with a Resident Assistant on floors 2 and 3. All residential floors have six suites and each suite houses between 12 and 16 students (primarily in triple rooms) who share two small lounge areas and a bathroom.

Blake Hall is named after the USCGS Steamer Blake, a coast survey ship under the command of J.E. Pillsbury. Measurements of the Gulf Stream were made between 1885 and 1890. This ship was also used by Alexander Agassiz. He began a twenty-five year coral reef study in the Caribbean and visited the Scripps Institution in the early days.

The Fleet

Atlantis, Beagle, Challenger, Discovery, Galathea and Meteor Hall

The Fleet are named after the six infamous ships that aided in research and oceanic exploration. These six buildings were the first residential facilities constructed at UCSD. They have single gender suites which alternate male and female throughout the building. Each building houses approximately 80 students and one Resident Assistant. The Fleet Residence Halls were renovated in 2010.

The Atlantis, a 142 foot sailing ship with a powerful auxiliary engine, made its first trip in 1831, and was the first ship of Scripps' sister institution, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Many of Scripps' oceanographers sailed on this ship which worked throughout the Atlantic and Caribbean areas, as well as the southeast Pacific and Mediterranean.

Charles Darwin joined the Beagle as a member of a surveying expedition. He was the naturalist and geologist in the group. For five years (1831-1836) he cruised the Atlantic and Pacific. Darwin stated later that this cruise determined the course of his career and was a factor in the development of his theory of evolution. Original volumes of the cruise are in the Special Collections of the UC San Diego Geisel Library, the Hill Collection of Voyages.

The HMS Challenger was the first around the world oceanographic expedition. It was a 236 foot naval corvette which circumnavigated the globe in a long three and a half year voyage from 1872 to 1876. Wyville Thomson headed the civilian scientific staff. Over fifty volumes were produced as reports from this expedition, and these are all at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Library.

The first Discovery, a British research vessel, took Robert Falcon Scott to the Antarctic in 1900. In 1910, on its second trip, the same ship delivered Scott and his group to the South Pole. Scott, with others reached the pole on foot only to find that Amundsen had been there a month earlier. Sir Charles Wright, a past Director of Scripps' Marine Physical Laboratory, went with Scott on the first expedition. The ship has been restored and is moored on the Thames River in England.

The Galathea was a Scandinavian research vessel financed by contributions from the people of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. From 1950 to 1952 it circumnavigated the globe and explored deep oceanic trenches. The Galathea Deep in the Philippine Trench is named after this ship.

The Meteor was a German ship renowned for making the first large cruise in a single ocean. From 1925 to 1927 Dr. Alfred Merz and Dr. Georg Wüst made a systematic investigation of an extensive area of the Atlantic, which was known as the German Atlantic expedition.