Mearns Rock 1992

What You See

The boulder is now about 50% covered with larger, older seaweed (mainly Fucus). Barnacles are filling in spaces left by dying seaweed. The beach face is heavily covered with seaweed.

What's Happening

The Fucus that was young in the 1990 photo has aged and is now dying off. Why is it dying off?

(07.01.92, Snug Harbor, Knight Island, Alaska)

• 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.

• Oil Spills along the Shore Oil spilled into the water, having been pushed by winds and currents, often reaches the shore.

• 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.

• Summary Points: 10 Years of Intertidal Monitoring After the Exxon Valdez Spill A short summary of the main findings of NOAA biologists studying the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on intertidal shorelines in Prince William Sound.