Sant Ocean Hall

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

Dive In!

There’s not another Earth system that affects all of life as profoundly as the ocean. This 23,000-square-foot exhibition takes you from the shore and shallows all the way down to the ocean floor. On this fascinating dive, you’ll also travel through time, from the origins of the ocean 3.8 billion years ago to the challenges and exciting scientific opportunities the ocean presents today.

The Sant Ocean Hall contains more than 600 specimens, as well as life-sized models like Phoenix, a real North Atlantic right whale who scientists have been tracking since her birth in 1987.

The ocean is a global system, essential to all life.

Did you know?

In 1903, the Museum created the first full-cast of a whale ever displayed.

Look For

coral reef in the ocean hall exhibit — A bubblegum coral, the largest-known deep sea coral, named for its bright pink color and gumball-like branch tips.

four people standing on one side of large shark mouth — The jaws of extinct Megalodon where you can take a selfie.

a hanging skeleton of a basilosaurus — Three skeletons of ancient whale relatives (one of which had legs!)

a giant squid specimen — A preserved 25-foot-long giant squid

a coelacanth fish — A Coelacanth, a fish once thought to have gone extinct approximately 65 million years ago during the great extinction in which the dinosaurs disappeared.

Things To Do

Take a selfie in the massive fossilized jaws of C.megalodon, a gigantic shark that prowled the ocean between 2.6 and 23 million years ago
Find a carpet anemone, a snapping shrimp, a long-spined sea urchin, or any of the 21 other species in the living Indo-Pacific coral reef
Watch an innovative video presentation of global ocean data projected on a six-foot-diameter sphere

Ocean Portal

Find your blue!

Come explore the ocean—from the sea surface to the very deepest reaches of the seafloor. This website offers a deeper dive into the ocean subjects found in the Sant Ocean Hall.

Dive in