Chesapeake Biological Laboratory

The Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) is a marine science laboratory on the Chesapeake Bay in Solomons, Maryland, and it is the oldest state-supported marine laboratory on the East Coast of the U.S.[1] It was founded in 1925 in a small waterman's shack by Dr. Reginald V. Truitt and is part of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.[2]

As of 2013, CBL had 28 faculty members, 7 visiting PhD-level scientists, 22 students, 29 research technicians and 33 staff.[3]; total employment by 2021 was 128, and the lab was the 20th largest employer in Calvert County [4] The CBL campus includes 21 buildings, which include purpose built research facilities with running sea water and environmentally-controlled chambers.[5] The Nutrient Analytical Services Laboratory is a key service lab that provides chemical analysis for samples from across the United States.[6] The lab has other diverse instrumentation that allow its scientists to make measurements of biogeochemical constituents. One example is a stable isotope mass spectrometer,[7] located in the Bernie Fowler Laboratory, which is named for a local politician, Bernie Fowler, who advocated for cleaning up Chesapeake Bay. Local research is supported by the research vessel RV Rachel Carson (2008), which is home ported at CBL.