Scots naturalist and one of the founders of oceanography, whose particular interests were ocean basins, deep-sea deposits, and coral-reef formation.

In 1868 Murray began collecting marine organisms and making a variety of oceanographic observations during an expedition to the Arctic islands of Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen, off Norway. Murray did much to organize the Challenger (Challenger Expedition) Expedition (1872–76), which made extremely valuable contributions in charting, surveying, and biological investigation, and he helped outfit it with equipment for conducting oceanographic studies. As a naturalist with the expedition, he was placed in charge of the biological specimens collected. Kept at Edinburgh, they attracted the attention of marine biologists from around the world for 20 years.

After the death of the expedition's leader, Sir Wyville Thomson (1882), Murray completed the publication of the 50-volume Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger (1880–95). He also directed biological investigations of Scottish waters (1882–94), surveyed the depths of Scottish lakes (1906), and took part in a North Atlantic oceanographic expedition (1910). He was knighted in 1898. His writings include the paper “On the Structure and Origin of Coral Reefs and Islands” (1880) and, with Johan Hjort, The Depths of the Ocean (1912).