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Vida Benthic Habitats   CABRILLO Home | Vida

Southern California Benthic Habitats
Vida is one of six tasks in the CABRILLO Project of the U.S. Geological Survey's Coastal and Marine Geology Team. Vida addresses relationships between the sea-floor geology and benthic habitats.

The main study area for the Vida project includes the Southern California coast and the Channel Islands.

         location map of Channel Islands and Southern California Coast
    [Click on above image for full view]

 Photo of gopher rockfish, photo taken by Brandon Cole the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.
Gopher Rockfish - These fish can reach a length of up to 15.5 inches and can live for up to 13 years. [learn more about rockfish]

Vida

The nearshore benthic habitat of the Southern California coast and Channel Islands supports a diversity of marine life that are commercially, recreationally, and intrinsically valuable. Some of these resources are known to be endangered including a variety of rockfish and the White Abalone. State and National agencies have been mandated to preserve and enhance these resources and require detailed habitat characterization in order to do so. This project will characterize and map the benthic habitat in areas that have been selected because they have been set aside as National Sanctuaries or State Preserves, or are areas of ongoing or planned fish population studies.

Photos of white abalone and rockfish
[Photos courtesy of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary web site.]

Species of importance in Southern California.
White Abalone and Rockfish.

Read more on Nearshore Benthic Habitat Mapping of the Southern California Coast and Channel Islands (exits this site)
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Link to CABRILLO Home Page
For more information, please contact: 
Project coordinator: Homa J. Lee
Web coordinator: Carol Reiss
Web developer: Lori Hibbeler

URL: http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/cabrillo/vida/index.html
Site maintained by: Laura Zink Torresan
Modified: 3 May 2004 (lh)
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