Darwin Core Archive: Santa Barbara Channel fish surveys at deep reefs: Footprint, Piggy Bank, Anacapa Passage

The dataset contains fish surveys from deep natural reefs in the
northern Santa Barbara Channel Islands, Southern California, mainly
at reefs named Piggy Bank, Footprint (local names) and Anacapa
Passage. Data collection began in 1995. Reefs are located at depths
between 30 and 360 m (100 and 1,180 feet). Sampling was by the
manned submersibles Delta and DualDeepworker and an unmanned Remotely
Operated Vehicle (ROV). These sites included a wide range of such
habitats as banks, ridges, and carbonate reefs, ranging in size from
a few kilometers in length to less than a hectare in area. On these
features, we focused on hard bottom macro­habitats, including kelp
beds, boulder and cobble fields, and bedrock outcrops. Transects
were not deliberately revisited; some reefs were surveyed as many as
four times per year. All transects are 2 m wide; transect length
varied (see data). Fishes were identified to lowest possible taxon (usually species),
and verified against the WoRMs database
(http://www.marinespecies.org/). This dataset is formatted as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A,
occurrence core). This is a derived data product and see provenance
for the source data.