The founding mandate of the Laboratory (1968) was to encourage the development of knowledge of the dependence of fishery resources and their food chains on the physical environment and its man-made and natural changes.
From 1978 to 1987 its three divisions were: Biological Oceanography, Environmental Quality and Fisheries Oceanography.
History
The Atlantic Oceanographic Group was founded under the Fisheries Research Board of Canada in 1944 at the St. Andrews Biological Station (NB) and continued woking closely with the Canadian Royal Navy and with the National Research Council after World War II.
It moved to Halifax in 1960 in a group of single story wooden buildings on Terminal Road, though it was still considered as a division of the St. Andrews Biological Station for some time.
The AOG moved to the uncompleted buildings that would become Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) in the Summer of 1962. BIO opened in October 1962.
In 1965 the AOG lost its Physical Oceanography group and became a laboratory reporting directly to the Fisheries Research Board.
In 1966 the AOG became the Dartmouth Laboratory and in 1968 the "Marine Ecological Laboratory" (MEL), while acquiring the responsibility of the Ellerslie field station on Prince Edward Island, which had been under the St. Andrews Biological Station until then. A field station was also established at Boutilier’s Point in St. Margaret’s Bay that included a jetty for berthing small vessels.
In 1971, the MEL administratively became part of the then-new Department of Environment, who became the Department of Fisheries and the Environment in 1976, who then yielded the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) in 1979.
The MEL disbanded in 1987 following a major reorganization in DFO. Its staff and mandate were redistributed across BIO.
