EarthScope Oceans is an organization founded by a multidisciplinary group of geoscientists who are coordinating efforts to create a global network of sensors that monitor the Earth from within the oceanic environment. As other organizations are doing for the land-based seismological communities today, EarthScope Oceans shepherds national projects into the international arena where globally relevant, applicable, and mutually agreed-upon decisions can be made on instrument development, science objectives, data management, and outreach. As MERMAID technology develops, EarthScope Oceans is expected to become more multidisciplinary and include seismologists, biologists, geochemists, meteorologists, oceanographers and others. Collaboration with ocean-observing programs will enable complementary observation of ocean temperature, salinity, and biogeochemical traces, and cost-effective instrument deployment and recovery by ships of opportunity.