The makers of the documentary, “Marine Field Station: The Retreat,” used a drone for this aerial shot of the research site in Tuckerton, N.J. Photo credit: Rutgers University
Marine scientists in Tuckerton, N.J., are witnessing firsthand how rising ocean waters will one day permanently shut down their research station.
The researchers share their thoughts on eventually losing this critical hub of marine and coastal research in Marine Field Station: The Retreat, a 10-minute documentary made by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick professor and his production crew of film students and alumni.
The documentary, which was screened during the 2025 New Jersey International Film Festival, features three Rutgers scientists – ecologists Thomas “Motz” Grothues and Lisa Auermuller and oceanographer Oscar Schofield – as well as the Rutgers University Marine Field Station, a facility of the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences within the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The station, which serves as a working lab where graduate- and postdoctoral-level research is conducted year-round (the space is occupied by researchers about 69 hours a week on average), sits across from the Little Egg Inlet in the Mullica River-Great Bay estuary.
“We know with sea level rise, water isn’t just going to come and go,” Auermuller said in the documentary. “It’s going to come and stay. And so, what we know as of today’s high tides and where the water is, that it’s going to be the permanent condition moving forward.”
Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a Rutgers-led consortium of 13 institutions whose mission is to conduct research to develop effective, evidence-based responses to coastal climate change risks, supported the film with funding from the National Science Foundation.
View the documentary and the original article on Rutgers Today.
