Environmental Studies Of Monterey Bay And The Central California Coastal Zone Annual Report, July, 1971

The present report is a supplement to our PROGRESS REPORT: FIRST HALF-YEAR OF OPERATION—JULY 1970-FEBRUARY 1971. The first four sections provide detailed information concerning major subdivisions of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories data collection program: sea-air-land zone of con tact, Monterey Bay, Elkhorn Slough, and the Pajaro River. These sections describe the physical characteristics of the study areas, indicate ration ale for selection of stations and their locations, provide brief notes on historical background and on previous studies of each area, and furnish a selected list of references. These sections also outline procedures for organization of the Research Participation teams for the data collection program. They indicate scope of data collected during the first four months of full-scale operation and suggest certain first-vintage hypotheses which can be developed from these, as yet, entirely preliminary data. Later sections outline procedures for data collection and analysis by discipline: fishes, benthic invertebrates, plankton, and sediment analysis. Final sections outline organizational and operational procedures of the SCUBA Marine Research team, which provides diver support for all phases of the program, as well as organization of information services in the library. General institutional organization for the Sea Grant program has been discussed in some detail in the PROGRESS REPORT cited earlier. These procedures have been thoroughly tested during this first full semester of operation and have been found operationally sound and productive. In most instances, team efficiency has exceeded expectations both in quantity and quality of work. A roster of personnel and their areas of responsibility indicates the scope of support provided for this program, which has become a total institutional effort at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.