Mearns Rock 2009

What You See

What's Happening

(07.01.09, 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.