With all of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it’s important to take a minute to sit and enjoy our surroundings. One of my favorite places to do this is on the back deck at MLML, which overlooks Monterey Bay. This special place is named “John Martin’s ‘Point of View,'” in honor of MLML’s late director.
It may be hard to believe, but that concrete canal is broken because the earth here actually moved. The canal was built on a fault line, which makes it so easy to see the results of tectonic activity. A student in the Geological Oceanography class takes a look while on a field trip.
It’s the catch from a midwater trawl. The fishes you see are Myctophids, or different kinds of lanternfishes that live in the deepsea. They have the amazing ability to produce light, or bioluminesce. Also in this picture are many types of plankton, that include the red, shrimp-like invertebrates you see. Can you find the jelly?
Graduate student Sara Hutto surveys the swell before venturing out farther in the tide pools to work on research for a grant. Sara ventures out into the intertidal at all times of night and day and in all kinds of weather to get her work done on low tides, when more of the algae she studies are exposed.
How does the ocean swell affect the movement of sediment on the seafloor in Monterey Bay? To answer this, just board the 135-foot Research Vessel (R/V) Point Sur and join students Casey Clark and Kristen Meagher of the MLML Physical Oceanography class. They are using wave height and seafloor maps to speculating on how wave intensity influences sediment movement in Monterey Bay.
Nope! It’s just a snail from the genus Calliostoma. This photo was taken by MLML undergraduate intern Sara Jeffries while on a dive at Monastery Beach. The kelp is called Pterygophora californica, and can form a dense understory about a meter tall beneath the canopy of giant kelp.
This incredible picture of an Egg Yolk, or Fried Egg Jelly was captured by MLML grad student Scott Gabara while diving for PISCO – the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans. Scott was conducting subtidal fish transects in Bluefish Cove, California when he came upon the jelly. The scientific name of this jelly is Phacellophora camtschatica.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that many MLML grad students consider this location a place of work. Countless thesis projects have taken place in Stillwater Cove in Carmel Bay, and on occasion, students catch a sunset as beautiful as this one.
by Paul Tompkins, Phycology Lab
The gulls first caught my attention, a small flock in a tight swarm above the waves just beyond my surfboard. Others floated on the surface below. Suddenly the sea below them erupted, and the birds on the surface took flight. A frothy pink spray of water shot into the air; there was blood in the water. As the water calmed the gulls swooped and dove, feeding. A few seconds later the scene repeated itself, another violent splash of bloody water. My instincts were screaming, telling me turn and paddle in, to get out of the water.
My curiosity got the better of me, and I sat transfixed as something was being ripped to pieces only a few hundred yards away. Other gulls were making a beeline to join in the feast, and the flock grew. I watched the attack for another minute, until at last a large black fin broke the horizon and my suspicions were confirmed. This was no sea lion or orca, but a large white shark, eating lunch.
I swung towards the beach, catching my last wave on the way in. As I crested the dunes to get a better vantage, I saw the shark hit twice more. I ran to the parking lot to grab my binoculars. By the time I looked back to sea, the gulls had stopped flying, all were swimming on the surface. I peered through the lenses for a few more minutes, but the attack had ended. I walked back down to my car, relieved that I had been a witness to a raw display of nature’s brutality, rather than an unwilling participant.
Everyone knows how you catch a fish: With a net, or with a pole, right?
But, how do marine scientists manage to catch sea birds? Can’t they just “fly away”?
Of course, most species can do just that! So, how to get your hands on these shy creatures? Wouldn’t it be nice if the birds just gathered in groups, like so many fishes do?
Wait …
Seabirds DO gather in groups – to nest at their breeding colonies,
… and sometimes at sea in large, drifting “rafts”!
…So, how to catch seabirds … hmmmm?
