Alaska Charter Skipper, David Janka, "Captures" Mearns Rock
AUGUST 11, 2017--On Sunday morning, August 6, David Janka, owner and skipper of Auklet Charters, of Cordova, Alaska, visited Snug Harbor in Prince William Sound, capturing a series of photos of Mearns Rock at the NOAA Exxon Valdez inter-tidal site.
Soon after, OR&R’s Emergency Response Division Senior Scientist, Dr. Alan Mearns, received the key photo that extends the annual photo time series to 28 years. When compared with previous years, Mr. Janka's new photos reveal that since 2014, when the rock and site were nearly barren of marine life except for barnacles, the abundance of seaweeds and mussels has increased dramatically. For Rockweed, this is the fifth episode in 28 years of substantial growth and cover.
Mr. Janka is one of five local volunteers who this summer visited and photographed a total of seven NOAA shoreline sites that have been monitored since 1989. The entire photo collection reveals how inter-tidal marine life varies across years and decades, supporting the idea that recovery from an oil spill requires understanding the natural multi-year range of variability that occurs over decades.
Mr. Janka's photo will soon be added to the NOAA OR&R website describing this long-term volunteer photo program. See Mearns Rock: Watching Ecological Recovery from an Oil Spill.
For further information, contact Alan.Mearns@noaa.gov.