In classic big oceans/small world style, we catch up with former MLML student and Dive Safety Officer John Heine for an alumni career interview. We connected with him from all the way across the country on Florida’s sunny east coast, with a tip from a fellow Masters student in the brand new Master of Marine Science program at Jacksonville University. Currently a research associate at JU, John has developed an exciting career during and since his time here at Moss Landing Marine Labs. Read on to explore!
As I was driving to school this morning, I caught the end of this story on oil spills, penguins and sweaters. It’s worth a listen. Apparently, the sweaters keep penguins from ingesting oil while preening after exposure to an oil spill. Read more about the recent New Zealand oil spill here.
During the MS 141 Geologic Oceanography field trip on monday October the 10th, I learned something new about a place I have been visiting for years. Panther Beach is about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz and a diverse, dynamic beach to visit. With a huge sandstone arch and places to boulder and rock climb it has much to offer and changes with the seasons as the sand is removed during winter and deposited back during summer. Little did I know, but a rock outcrop I had walked by for years was composed of mud and many, many diatoms, tiny algae phytoplankton which are made of silica and leave behind their skeleton when they pass away. If you were to lick a fresh portion of this rock it seems like the rock is sticky, this is because of the many tubes of the diatom skeletons creating suction on your tongue!!! The study of rocks definitely rocks!
If you were to continuously monitor the pH of water in the open ocean over the course of a day, the graph of your data would be a straight line. Not so for a coral reef system, where the biodiversity and presence of microenvironments found in crevices of the reef make for pH measurements that will vary over a spatial and temporal scale. Dr. Nichole Price, a post doctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, seeks to explain the causes and consequences of the carbonate chemistry variability found in a reef system. Dr. Price was the guest lecturer this past Thursday during the MLML weekly seminar series. Besides bringing a plethora of stunning images from her field research off the coast of the Palmyra Line Islands, Dr. Price spoke on the topic of “Natural variability in seawater pH on a coral reef: causes and consequences for reef accretion and community structure”.
“What was THAT?!” I expressively gestured to my snorkel buddy, Alex. A streak of bright green and pink that seemed to move too quickly for its blob-like shape darted through the beam of my dive light. As we kicked through the warm moonlit water off the Lee Stocking Island dock, we came across many cool creatures that lay hidden during the daylight hours. Driven partly by curiosity for exploration, and partly by my wild imagination for what could be lurking in the dark, I took a breath and dove down to take a closer look. With a little patience and persistence, we spotted it again, this time stationary on a dock post, posed as though it was ready for a chase. That beautiful animal that had caught my eye, much to my delight, was a spunky little octopus. It was a brief but exciting first encounter with one in the wild. To this day I am still in awe of that cryptic critter’s grace and agility.
Caribbean reef octopus on Lee Stocking Island dock post (photo: Alexander Paradise, 2011)
Cephalopods (octopuses, squids, nautiluses, and cuttlefish) are predatory invertebrates found in oceans throughout the world. They are fascinating and charismatic, with cool chromatophores that they use for camouflage and communication.
As a recent transplant from the east coast, I cannot yet speak of encounters with cephalopods while diving in the cool Pacific waters, though I am keeping an eye out for them! A recent graduate, Erin Jensen, studied octopods during her time at Moss Landing, and you can find a post related to her research here.
Check out this neat post about cephalopods by invertebrate zoologist and echinoderm expert Dr. Chris Mah in recognition of Cephalopod Awareness Days.
The MS 141 Geological Oceanography class traveled to the Marin headlands to visit many rocky outcrops. The folded rock near rodeo beach San Francisco was most impressive. This rock was around 300 million years old. Composed of layer upon layer of radiolarian skeletons, tiny creatures with mineral bodies that get left behind, the outcrop has layers that span millions of years that have since been down-lifted, compressed and uplifted. This is some rock that rocks!
Professor Ivano Aiello speaking about the radiolarian chert and how the outcrop was formed around 300 million years ago.
On Tuesday, Oct 4, MLML hosted the first Monterey Area Research Institution’s Network for Education (MARINE) event of the academic year. Following a dinner and social reception catered by Moss Landing’s own Haute Enchilada, around 80 students, faculty, and researchers from seven area institutions enjoyed a seminar presented by Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University, Dr. Pam Matson. Dr. Matson’s talk kicked off the MARINE Land-Sea Interaction seminar series with a discussion of an interdisciplinary case study focused on sustainability in Mexico’s Yaqui Valley through community involvement and an assessment of agricultural runoff into the Sea of Cortez.
MARINE is a collaborative effort of Monterey Bay area institutions, headed by the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford University. The MARINE program encourages student leadership, provides networking opportunities and professional development, and promotes collaboration in addressing marine science research and policy concerns. For a comprehensive list of upcoming seminars and events, please visit the Center for Ocean Solution’s MARINEpage. Remember, you can always find Moss Landing Marine Labs news, events, and seminar information at our homepage.
“The latest tool in wildlife biology is a garden spade,” says Ryan Carle, as he happily describes his work with Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, a nonprofit working worldwide to improve biodiversity conservation and increase understanding of human impacts on marine ecosystems.
Ryan started this fall as one of Moss Landing’s newest students, but has been working with Oikonos as a project biologist for two years on seabird habitat restoration on Año Nuevo Island.
Ryan surveying the island. (photo: Oikonos)
Año Nuevo Island, part of Año Nuevo State Reserve, is located roughly half way between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. It is a critical breeding habitat for seabirds and marine mammals, including the Rhinoceros Auklet, burrow-nesting seabirds similar to puffins.
During Physical Oceanography class (MS 142) Professor Dr. Erika McPhee-Shaw invited interested students to participate in a day cruise aboard the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories 135’ research vessel (R/V) Point Sur. The cruise was part of a collaborative research project between scientists at the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS), the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the physical oceanography lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) (Dr. McPhee-Shaw is the lead PI). The mission included the deployment of oceanographic instrument moorings and the collection of conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) measurements at stations along an isobath, or line of constant depth, in Monterey Bay.
photo: E Donham
I arrived at the ship at 0700 in order to make it aboard for the safety briefing before setting sail. The morning was foggy which delayed our departure by a half hour. At our first stop NPS researchers deployed an instrument mooring fitted with an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) which will take continuous water velocity measurements throughout the water column. These water velocity measurements will help the scientists understand how water is flowing in the bay.
The NPS team readying their mooring before deployment (photo: E Donham)
Next we moved further offshore to deploy Erika’s instruments. Read more →
“What have I done!?” This is my first thought as I plunge into the frigid waters at Stillwater Cove. Having just moved to Moss Landing after spending the past eight years in tropical Hawaii, this is my first chance to dive in California’s temperate waters. My dive computer reads a mere 54° F, but that can’t be right. This water feels much closer to freezing. Once I’m able to recover from the initial shock I realize that my arms just don’t bend the way they used to. This is mostly due to the 10 mm of neoprene wrapped around my body to help keep me warm. I used to be able to get away with just a 2mm top! I slowly become acclimated to the temperature and limited mobility and descend to the depths for my first glimpse into the kelp forest ecosystem.
photo: E. Donham
Unfortunately, today isn’t the greatest of visibilities. The water has a greenish hue and I’m not able to see beyond about 15-20 feet, but even so, there is still a lot to get excited about. Coming from the tropics where reef-building hard corals are the main attraction, it’s hard to believe that macroalgae could ever be so breathtaking. Some of the giant kelps at our dive site are over 60 feet tall, which makes it easy to see why people refer to their ecosystems as forests. I look closer and see small groups of juvenile rockfish intermingled within the kelp, utilizing its blades for shelter. The closer I look, the more I see, and I start to realize it’s going to take me awhile to learn what everything is, despite the lower species abundance and diversity compared to tropical coral reefs. It certainly doesn’t help that the muted colors here make differentiating between species tricky. We ascend to our safety stop and a sea lion swims in to check us out.
At the end of my dive day I look back and am once again reminded of why I decided to study marine science and I can’t wait to jump back in the water as soon as possible. Luckily for me, as a student of the Ichthyology lab, my advisor has decided to make biweekly dives a part of our education. Hopefully exploring California’s coastal waters will help in my search for a thesis topic.
