An opportunity is quickly approaching for you to get involved in marine science. All you have to do is pull out your camera and snap some pictures.
On January 20, 21 and 22, and February 6, 7, and 8 king tides will take place along our coast. What’s a king tide? A king tide is the one of the highest seasonal tides. For example, on January 21st the high will be 6.3 feet and on February 7 it will be 5.8 feet. The California King Tides Initiative is asking members of the public to help document these big tides, because they can help us visualize what rising waters along our California coasts might do in the future.
Blog creator and MLML alumna Erin Loury contemplates the future of Capitola's beaches during a 2011 king tide. (photo: Center for Ocean Solutions, Mike Fox)
When king tides coincide with big swell, they can have some impressive and damaging results. You can see pictures from past king tides and learn more on the California King Tide Initiative home page. So charge those camera batteries, and get ready to see science in action. And remember, have fun and stay safe!
One sunny afternoon at the beach in Moss Landing, beachgoers were treated to a tangy surprise. Dr. Erika McPhee-Shaw’s Physical Oceanography class made the most of the beautiful weather and nearby beach to observe the effects of alongshore transport in the surf zone.
Physical oceanography students observing wave action on the Monterey Bay. Photo: Jason Adelaars
From the shore, students observed the waves breaking and made predictions about the direction of alongshore transport and where convergent rip currents would occur.
Feeding surfers? Not exactly. Vertebrate Ecology Lab student Emily Golson pitches an orange to observe it move in the surf zone. Photo: Jason Adelaars
How did they test these predictions? Why, launching citrus into the surf zone, of course! Members of the class warmed up their pitching arms and threw oranges into the water from the beach. They observed and discussed where the oranges traveled as a means of visualizing transport of sediment and plankton with the movement of water in the near-shore environment.
Students discuss the movement of the oranges in the surf zone. Photo: Jason AdelaarsDr. Erika McPhee-Shaw launches an orange in the name of science. Photo: Jason AdelaarsPhysical Oceanography Teaching Assistant Shandy Buckley (L) discusses alongshore transport with students. Photo: Jason Adelaars
Diana Steller speaks to the algae underwater, "No no no little brown algae, no bullying."
Have you ever needed help from your friends when confronted with a brown algae bully? The Monterey Bay Aquarium has, they needed divers to help rescue algae in one of their tanks. Moss Landing Marine Labs MS 105 Marine Science Diving class had the opportunity to dive in the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s kelp forest habitat tank (their kelp tank site is here). This tank receives water from just offshore of the aquarium and gets all kinds of baby critters from the water that normally settle and grow just outside the aquarium. Some of these baby drifters are the spores of an alga (singular of algae) named Dictyopteris undulata. This alga has been bullying the other algae in the tank and outcompeting them for space. The dive class was tasked with helping remove the algae and you can see from the photo above we were not happy with this little brown bully!
Student Will Fennie aids in collection of the bully.
F/V Huli Cat deckand Shannon O'Brien holds a vermilion rockfish, Sebastes miniatus, with MLML Ichthyology Lab student, Emily Donham
by Emily Donham, Ichthyology Lab
As a volunteer with the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP), I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with central California’s ichthyofauna (fish species). CCFRP’s mission is to monitor the performance of central California’s marine protected areas (MPA) by collecting data on the abundance and distribution of fishes via collaboration with the local fishing community.
MLML FIsheries and Conservation Lab student and CCFRP researcher, Cheryl Barnes, prepares to size and tag fish aboard the F/V Huli Cat
Classes at Moss Landing Marine Labs involve a lot of field trips, and this semester is no exception. On November 7, 2011 the marine ecology students ventured seaward to explore the ocean benthos.
Photo by MLML/UNOLS
The students waited with anticipation, saying goodbye to the familiar Moss Landing Harbor as the 135-foot Point Sur pulled slowly out into the open ocean.
On Tuesday November 15, 2011, Friends of MLML hosted a talk with one of MLML’s own, Dr. Mike Graham, author of “The Essential Naturalist.” An alumni of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, he then obtained his Ph.D. at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Then, Dr. Graham came back to the MLML and is the advisor for the phycology (seaweeds) lab.
Nowadays with the internet, it can be easy for researchers to overlook journal articles that are 100, 50, even just 20 years old. With marine science librarian Joan Parker and Dr. Paul Dayton, Dr. Graham compiled older scientific articles—some from over one hundred years ago—into “The Essential Naturalist.” Not only were these articles extremely significant in a scientific context, but they also told great stories for those who enjoy nature. Dr. Graham stresses that scientists before us were just as smart as we are and they thought about all that goes into scientific research—methods, data analysis, etc.—just as we do now. So, all we need to do is dig a bit to find articles that greatly contributed to science, and are hence indispensable for anyone who considers themselves naturalists!
Below is a conversation with Dr. Graham about “The Essential Naturalist”:
Where did you get the inspiration for “The Essential Naturalist”?
Well it stemmed out of a series of conversations I had with my PhD advisor (and “Essential Naturalist” co-editor) Paul Dayton. I was looking into the old literature while studying for my PhD qualifying exam and kept uncovering old papers that seemed to say exactly what more modern papers were saying. And every time I told Paul about one of these papers, he would respond with a comment about another paper that people had forgotten as well. So after a while we just started talking about how modern ecologists were beginning to lose their roots, and how great it would be to resurrect some of these papers.
How did you decide which journal articles to place in the book?
Well, in addition to all of the search I did on my own, plus the additions from Paul and Joan (my fellow co-editors), I polled over 100 ecologists and evolutionary biologists as to what their favorite Natural History gems were. This resulted in a long list, some papers of which were easily discarded because they didn’t fit our intended format for the book. But we ended up with about 150 papers that were good. Then I simply started working through them all to see which had compelling readings that could be excerpted and of interest to a broader audience. I tested some of the materials against my own kids and students to see what was boring, as well as my father Jon who loves natural history and was a good sounding board. The rest of the choices were simply from intuition as to what would fly.
Why do you think scientists and researchers tend to disregard, even sometimes inadvertently, journal articles that were published 50+ years ago?
Out of sight, out of mind. Its harder to keep track of the literature today with 1000s of articles published per year. Everyone has deadlines. So the easiest thing is to either Google your keywords of interest, or cite a paper that just happened to be on your desk, recommended by a colleague, or in a journal you subscribe to. All of these make it harder to find the older papers.
An electric eel, which Baron Von Humboldt studied and wrote about during his journeys.
Can you tell us one of your favorite stories in “The Essential Naturalist”?
I like them all, for different reasons. But the one that I recite the most is the story from Humboldt of how the native South Americans showed him how to fish for electric eels using stampeding horses. The story is vivid. My kids love hearing me tell it. And it’s so visual that you just cant help telling the story in such an exciting voice. It’s a lot of fun.
The Marine Ecology class recently boarded the our research vessel the Point Sur for a trawling expedition. The plan for this field trip was to run three—one mid-water and two benthic—trawls. The benthic zone is the lowest level in the ocean and includes the seafloor, which is a habitat that has a lot of biodiversity. So, it was expected that the nets would bring up many intriguing organisms, and they did not disappoint! The most prevalent invertebrates we captured were urchins, specifically red and heart urchins, but I want to focus on the slightly bigger invertebrates that caught my eye: three octopi!
Two east Pacific red octopi in adjacent tanks.
Octopi are incredibly intelligent and have highly developed nervous systems with 500 million neurons, which to put in perspective is in the same level as cats and dogs. Although we are unsure what species of octopus we captured, we believe that these amazing cephalopods are most likely east Pacific red octopi. The east Pacific red octopus, Octopus rubescens, is a small octopus ranging from 40 to 50 cm in length, and researchers who study this invertebrate say that it can easily solve puzzles and has an incredible memory. So, after the Point Sur docked, we immediately took the octopi to our aquarium room to place them in their own tanks, which we filled with toys for them!
An east Pacific red octopus adjusting do his new home.This octopus has iridescent coloring.
Other than a few awesome, albeit too short, trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I hadn’t spent much time in the Central Coast. So when I moved up here for graduate school at MLML, I didn’t know much about the area; that is, until my MS 141 class. Geological Oceanography—taught by Dr. Ivano Aiello—involves learning about the formation of minerals and rocks, as well as geological mechanisms such as plate tectonics. We’ve taken field trips almost every week to various locations along the Central Coast and inland as well. One of my favorite field trips was our overnight trip to Point Reyes, where we stayed in an old lifeboat station while we observed different types of rock formations.
The lifeboat station was built in 1927 at Chimeny Rock in Point Reyes.
We examined multiple sedimentary rocks both along our journey to the station and also once we had arrived. One of the depositions we inspected was an outcrop of radiolarian cherts. These deposits sit underneath about half of the Marin Headlands, are resistant to weathering, and can be up to 200 million years old. They are comprised of radiolarians, which are protozoans that form siliceous (made of silica) skeletons. As these organisms decompose, a radiolarian ooze is formed in the deep ocean; over time, deposition occurs along the seafloor, forming the well-bedded radiolarian cherts.
Radiolarian cherts are formed from years of deposition of radiolarian siliceous skeletons on the seafloor.
Igneous rocks were also on our list of stops, as we went to a formation of pillow basalts. They are formed underwater as lava comes in contact with seawater and cools rapidly. Basalts are generally aphanitic rocks, meaning that they cool down too quickly for any minerals to form as the magma cools. As they are created, pillow basalts form ellipsoidal shapes and depict the direction of the lava flow.
Behind the class are pillow basalts, which are igneous rocks formed underwater as lava comes in contact with seawater and rapidly cools down.
It was so surreal to touch igneous and sedimentary structures that formed hundreds of millions of years ago. Examining these rocks helped me better understand the geological mechanisms involved in their formation. Not only did these sedimentary depositions and igneous rocks help me become more acquainted with the Central Coast, but they also demonstrated the fact that oceans are integral components to the geologic history of our planet.
Students carefully investigate a tidepool at Asilomar State Beach.
In October, two fellow Moss Landing students and I sprang into action to lead fourth graders on a tidepooling field trip to Asilomar State Beach. Students and chaperones from Ms. Alicia Doolittle’s fourth grade class at Bay View Academy in Monterey enthusiastically participated in the food web interactions lesson and activities prepared and taught by Sara Hutto, Nicole Bobco, and myself.
MLML graduate students (L to R) Nicole Bobco, Biological Oceanography Lab, Sara Hutto, Phycology Lab, and Diane Wyse, Physical Oceanography Lab
Though we each represent different labs at MLML, we all had a blast instructing and helping students identify organisms and their interactions in the intertidal environment. We were impressed by the students’ knowledge of food webs, and even regaled with a song! The field trip was also a treat for me, as I have not been tidepooling in California in many years, since visiting with family when I was about their age. At the end of the day, it seemed everyone had a great time learning about and exploring the beautiful coastal ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean.
Sara teaching a student about intertidal food web interactions.
They say a photo tells a thousand words, well the one I took that day has an amazing story. With the wind at our backs and a clear blue sky over head we walked along Manresa State Beach, over a dune towards a very special spot. We came across this piece of ancient beach. The bottom layer of the outcrop is the oldest layer that was deposited by winds moving sand from the beach inshore to form a dune. This dune fossilized, then sea level rose and the dune became submerged as a wave cut bench, similar to rocky intertidal areas seen along the coastline. Waves caused part of this layer to be eroded and the wave cut bench became completely submerged and became the inner continental shelf about 125,000 years ago. More sediment including pebbles to fine sand grains, was deposited on top of this bench, but then current re-suspended the fine sediments leaving only the pebbles behind.
Sea level dropped (or the shelf was uplifted) and the area became closer to shore called the near shore-offshore transition. Here storms deposited coarser sediments and finer sediments were deposited in calmer times creating cross bedding. As the water continued to recede the once beach dune moved into the surf zone creating alternating dark and light bands of sediments. This entire story was interpreted by students as they took measurements including unit height, grain size of particles, and the types of sediments in each layer. The best part of Geographical Oceanography is telling the story of our ancient coastline.
New students Stephen and Sarah measure layers of a fossil dune
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