Scott Creek

There are fantastic low morning tides in the northeastern Pacific this week and I came out to the central California coast very early this morning to survey marine algae at a few sites. Up today was Scott Creek, a location in northern Santa Cruz County that I have visited since my undergraduate days. Scott Creek itself is a small creek that flows under Highway 1 and empties into a sandy beach. To the north of the sandy beach are extensive intertidal sandstone benches with an abundance of sessile invertebrates and algae.

Scott Creek is often very windy, but was less so early this morning. There was a moderate swell and overcast skies that turned into drizzle as the morning progressed. The tidepools revealed nothing of great surprise to me today, but the tide was exceptional and exposed extensive low intertidal beds of the surfgrass Phyllospadix torreyi. Kelps and red seaweeds were in abundance. Bull kelps (Nereocystis luetkeana), one of my favorite seaweeds, were rather common, occurring as scattered individuals or in clusters of more plants. The sporophytes of this species ranged considerably in size, from a very small plant with tiny pneumatocyst and single as-yet-unbifurcated blade, to plants of several meters length with thick stipes and large pneumatocysts.

A sampling of some photos from today:

Bull kelps: larger sporophytes.

Smaller bull kelp sporophytes.

Laminaria sinclairii, another common kelp at Scott Creek. This species grows as
aggregates of stipes and thin blades, typically in intertidal areas scoured by sand.

Callophyllis, an attractive genus of smaller red seaweeds that grow in the low intertidal.

Osmundea (Rhodophyta).

Bryopsis. I found a few of individuals of this small green
seaweed in a tide pool in the mid intertidal.