Having different half-lives, Radium isotopes can be used to study marine processes with different timescales, which have been widely used in oceanography research. The applications of radium in oceanography research consist mostly of five aspects: the transportation of dissolved material, the estimation of the residence time of seawater, the submarine groundwater discharge, the geochemistry and radio chronology of the sediments, the quantitative analysis of seawater mass. In this paper, the progresses of radium isotopes are reviewed from its geochemical behaviors, measuring methods and the five application aspects mentioned above. The measuring methods are compared with each other. The principles, method models and formulas of the five application aspects are illustrated. The progresses of radium isotope oceanography are overviewed. The development direction and prospects of marine radium research in our country are suggested.