Discover Monterey Bay through Oceanography

Monterey Bay supports an amazing diversity of marine life and important fisheries. There is much to explore here, from the near-shore rocky reefs and kelp forests to a submarine canyon that rivals the Grand Canyon in scope. A day on the Bay can reveal a fleet of purse-seine vessels searching for squid, sport fishermen seeking salmon and halibut, and humpback whales breaching and feeding on anchovies ¿ all within a relatively small area. What are the oceanographic and biological processes that support these creatures and human endeavors? How do they vary in different parts of the Bay? How are these processes linked to the fog that controls the coastal climate and is critical to local agriculture? We will address such questions through lectures, discussion, and field work using the restored Western Flyer - the ship John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts took to the Gulf of California in 1940, resulting in publication of Sea of Cortez. You will collect oceanographic and biological data at sea using a variety of scientific instruments, including remotely operated video platforms, echosounder (sonar), water-column profiler, plankton-imaging microscopes, and aerial drones. And we will relate these data to the life of the Bay, moving all the way from wind to whales. We will also dive into Monterey Bay's rich cultural and literary history. This program will reveal a dynamic ocean from new viewpoints and will build teamwork skills that are essential to working at sea. Our base of operation will be Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove. We will make several relevant field trips on land. On seven days, we will use the Western Flyer as our classroom (these are all day trips - we will spend all nights on land). Four days of ship time will be devoted to studying spawning squid and feeding whales and carrying out an oceanographic transect across the Bay from kelp forest to canyon. Two additional days of ship time will be devoted to collecting data for team projects of your own design. Teams will present their projects at a symposium on the second last day. The last day of SoCo will feature a final morning of reflection on the Western Flyer before you return to Stanford.