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Mearns Rock: Twenty-Five Years of Photos

During a minus tide on June 25, 2014, Dr. Rob Campbell, biological oceanographer from the Prince William Sound Science Center (PWSSC) visited Knight Island in Prince William Sound.

He took the twenty-fifth consecutive photo of Mearns Rock, and emailed the photos to Dr. Alan Mearns in Seattle. Dr. Campbell had anchored in Snug Harbor on Tuesday evening during his monthly oceanographic cruise around Prince William Sound. In the morning he paddled ashore with two cameras and took 14 photos. He used a photo-site location job aid prepared in 2012 by Dr. Mearns to locate the site and the image alignment.

Rob's effort adds the newest photo to the quarter-century continuous record of biological conditions at this former NOAA set-aside site from 1989. (A set-aside is a site that was oiled in but not aggressively cleaned.) Dr. Mearns is using all previous photos at this, and seven other volunteer photo sites, to document from year to year, inter-annual and longer-term changes in the abundance of conspicuous biota (rockweed, mussels and barnacles). As OR&R Biologist Gary Shigenaka described in the recent Twenty-Five Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill , "If the Exxon Valdez experience has taught us anything, it has emphasized the importance of variability as both a key feature of biological communities and a critical consideration to integrate into assessments of disturbance and recovery. As we inevitably consider oil spill scenarios for the Arctic, they are framed against the background of change that is occurring at unprecedented rates." Please refer to the report for more information, including charts of biological variability and their possible association with climate variability.

It is critical for spill scientists, wishing to understand the effectiveness of response, to conduct long term monitoring to understand recovery. Simple photo-monitoring of selected sites, supported by local volunteers, can be an effective tool in this endeavor. OR&R scientists are conducting additional monitoring at oiled and treated marshes, including a recent marsh site that was burned to remove the oil.

Visit the Mearns Rock photo gallery.

For further information, contact Alan.Mearns@noaa.gov.

Go back to OR&R Weekly Report.

Large rock with barnacles.
Mearns Rock on June 25, 2014. (Rights Reserved, Rob Campbell, PWSSC)
Last updated Tuesday, November 8, 2022 1:54pm PST