1998 Monterey Sanctuary Cruises were a Success

In April 1998, Brian Edwards, Rob Kayen, and others from WCMG completed a marathon box-coring program on the Monterey Bay Sanctuary shelf, collecting a total of 108 box cores. Brian and Hank Chezar continued on NOAA's ship McArthur for a several-day program to biologically explore the "Pinnacles" area, southwest of Monterey, with a new ROV of NASA's, where they hope to help NASA and ourselves learn of the utility of their new ROV, with an eye to future use.

In June 1998, Andy Stevenson, David Dinter, Steve Eittreim, and Marlene Noble from WCMG completed a series of surveys and experiments in the Sanctuary to investigate the seafloor geology and environment. Twelve days of work on NOAA's ship McArthur yielded acoustic images of the seafloor in northern Monterey Bay as a first step towards detailed geologic mapping of the continental shelf of the Sanctuary. The images delineated signatures of sediment-transport paths, and distinguished areas of rocky outcrops from sandy and muddy areas of the seafloor. The active San Gregorio fault, south of Ano Nuevo, progenitor of numerous earthquakes, was imaged in detail as well as the series of faults of the Monterey Bay fault-zone offshore of Santa Cruz. A current-meter was re-installed at a site in the axis of Monterey Canyon at a depth of 3200 m, where, so far, 20 months of continuous recording has been achieved.

Background material on this project can be obtained.

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Page Last Modified: 1999; layout updated 18May10 (lzt)