|
|
 Home | Image Galleries | Emergency Response
Mearns Rock Time Series
A photo time series of Mearns Rock, a large boulder located in the intertidal zone at Snug Harbor on Knight Island, Prince William Sound, Alaska.
Click on the image to return to the gallery
|
Mearns Rock 2000
What You See
Mature Fucus now covers about 10% of the boulder's surface. In addition, there is a heavy cover of a grayish, slimy seaweed (this could be any of three or four seaweed species that can look like this). As in other years, these plants may be hiding barnacles, mussels, or young Fucus plants from our view. The white areas on the beach face look to be large barnacle sets. Eelgrass is barely visible in the water.
What's Happening
As in the 1993 photo, the mature Fucus plants are again dying back. However, at this time, there is no sign of a third new crop of young Fucus.
(07.01.00, Snug Harbor, Knight Island, Alaska)
|
|
| Related Pages on Our Site |
- Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Overview of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Includes links to many related resources, including photo galleries.
|
- Graphing Changes in Marine Life Abundance Try your hand at some marine biology! Follow these steps, designed for middle and high school students, to make a study of the marine life occupying a section, or quadrat, of Mearns Rock.
|
- Mearns Rock Time Series How does marine life recover from a major, one-time stress, such as an oil spill? As you will learn here, the answer is not simple.
|
- Northwest Bay Study Site Photos of one of our study sites, a rocky beach on an islet in Northwest Bay, shortly after high-pressure, hot-water washing in 1989, and again in 1998.
|
|
|
- Response to the Exxon Valdez Spill Within hours after the tanker Exxon Valdez spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, a team of NOAA OR&R scientists arrived on-scene.
|
|
|
|
|
