The Great Wave off Kanagawa is often mistakenly associated with the Tsunami.

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The philosopher George Berkeley posed this philosophical question and a quick internet search found a somewhat scientific answer in an 1894 issue of Scientific American. There they wrote: "Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Maybe sometimes vibrations are heard much later, only when the right person is listening.

On January 26, 1700, at about 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time one of the largest earthquakes ever to strike the Pacific Northwest rumbled across the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This massive earthquake sent a giant 33 foot high tsunami crashing onto shore, inundating the quiet coastline. While there is no written account describing the earthquake, tsunami or consequential damage, the devastation was enormous.

So wait. If there was no written record, how can we know the exact time and date when the tsunami struck? How can we know how big it was or what kind of damage it did? It took some digging and an impressive bit of scientific detective work by geologist Brian Atwater. First scientists discovered an unusual layer of sand in a marsh area that left a clue that a wave had struck, taken sand from offshore and brought it far inland. The scientists were able to date this thin sand deposit to around 1700, plus or minus 25 to 50 years. Then through tree-ring dating they were able to narrow that down to within five or ten years. Further study of tree roots narrowed it down even further to winter, 1700. Then investigators went to Japan and checked for evidence of a tsunami during that time. They looked for one which did not have a known earthquake associated with it. These were known as “orphan tsunami." There, in the records from 1700, was a tsunami the struck Japan, a wave that had the right pattern, right size, and was generated at the same place, the Cascadia Subduction Zone all the way on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. January 26, 1700, 9:00 p.m.

Can it happen again. Yes. Are we listening?

Watch the Scary Tsunamis television story online.

Our trip to the Farallon Islands was certainly eventful: seasickness (me), bug bites (me) and immersion in one of the most unique wildlife habitats in the world (which made it all worth it). This chain of windblown rocks, about 27 miles from San Francisco, is teeming with 300,000 seabirds in the spring and summer.

The noise of all these nesting and breeding birds is almost overwhelming (check out the slideshow below for a firsthand look), but these birds speak for a lot more than themselves. Our guides, PRBO Conservation Science, have been studying these birds for 40 years. As Biologist Russell Bradley explained, these seabirds are environmental samplers. In order to raise their chicks, they depend on the food web that blooms in the spring when coastal upwelling brings nutrient-rich water to the surface. If that is disrupted or delayed, the first place scientists will see it is in these bird populations, who will either have poor or non-existent breeding seasons.

Those changes in the upwelling patterns can be due to natural variability in the system. But increasing, scientists are asking whether the changes are due to climate change. That's not an easy question to answer. There are a lot of different factors in the mix.

I spoke with Zack Powell, a professor at UC Berkeley who studies climate and upwelling, and he said it all comes down to the timing of natural cycles. First, there's El Nino – where warm water spreads across the equator and heads up the California coast. That can happen every two to seven years and when it does, it acts a barrier to upwelling, interfering with the marine food web. Scientists recently confirmed that El Nino will return this year.

Looking at changes on a longer time frame, there's the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. It's a pattern of ocean warming and cooling that can last 30 years. Powell says it can also have an effect on marine life and fisheries.

And finally, there's climate change, which comparably may cause changes on the longest time frame. Powell says there's about 100 years of historical data about the ocean conditions off the California coast and it's not much when looking at such long-lived patterns. Powell and others work on climate modeling to help answer these questions. Some of the models show that the seasonal winds may become stronger, meaning upwelling patterns could be altered. And ocean temperatures could rise significantly, changing the way warmer surface water and nutrient-rich deep water mix.

Powell says right now his focus is the granularity of the climate models. They simply can't predict changes on a small geographic scale. "For most models, the smallest footprint is about 100km and all the upwelling takes place closer to shore than that." But he's hoping there will be drastic improvements over the next few years. And if extreme changes do take place, for whatever reason, the birds will certainly tell us.

Listen to the Journey to the Farallones radio report online, and check out our Farallon Islands Interactive Map for the sights and sounds of the island. Or watch the audio slideshow below for a first-hand look.

For these notes, I thought I'd focus on something that didn’t make it into the sea lions radio broadcast: the necropsy.

Each year the Marine Mammal Center treats somewhere between 600-1000 animals, including California sea lions, Pacific harbor seals, Northern elephant seals, and steller sea lions. About half of them are treated successfully at the center and released into the Pacific. The other half either die naturally or have to be euthanized.

Most of them end up at the center's hospital after passersby spot the animals on the beach and sense something’s wrong. (The Marine Mammal center responds to calls anywhere between Mendocino and San Louis Obispo Counties — some 600 miles of coastline.) Some problems are human-caused, like boat-propeller injuries or ingested fishing nets and hooks. Other times, it's cancer, domoic acid poisoning, or leptospirosis. Sometimes, it's hard to tell exactly what happened — hence the need for necropsies.

On the day that Quest intern Jennifer Skene and I visited the center, veterinarian Nicola Pussini performed two necropsies, both on sea lions. One animal seemed to have died from a tumor underneath his fin; the other was a suspected domoic acid intoxication.

Each necropsy takes about an hour and a half. First Pussini measures the animal, then he slices it open and inspects every part, from tongue to tail. He inspects the teeth, pulls out all the organs, checks to see how much fat the animal has. The data, along with tissue samples, are archived and shared with other research institutions. This is the kind of basic research that Marine Mammal Center staff cite when people ask why they devote so many resources (most of it from private donations) to animals whose populations are neither threatened nor endangered.

I should mention that I didn't exactly see this entire process firsthand. Let's just say that after my first strong whiff of sea lion intestine, I felt a compelling need to go check on things outside the necropsy room. Luckily for me, Jennifer has the stomach of a true scientist and managed to both hold the microphone and take photos. Luckily for you, we’re sparing you her gorier shots.

Listen to the Sea Lion Rescue radio report online, and watch our photo slideshow.

Seahorses are sold as expensive ingredients used in
traditional Chinese medicine.
When I was a kid I rode horses and was an avid ocean swimmer, and I absolutely fell in love with all sea creatures. But there was a special place in my heart for the one that seemingly combined my land and sea passions, the seahorse. Come to think of it, I don't think I actually thought these undersea chimeras existed in real life…in my mind they lived in storybook land along with unicorns and Mr. Tumnus. I mean, I never saw a real one…so how could I know? But these days kids are getting familiar with the real deal thanks to the hard work of a handful of public aquariums, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Steinhart Aquarium, The National Aquarium in Baltimore, The Shedd Aquarium, and The Birch Aquarium among others.

Not surprisingly, I jumped at the chance to produce the Quest "Seahorse Sleuth" story, but I will admit that the process of making this piece was demoralizing, to say the least. I spent days in San Francisco’s Chinatown trying to get shop owners who sell Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to talk to me about their trade, and specifically about seahorses. I must have visited 20 or so stores, multiple times, and I saw many hundreds of dried seahorses and thousands of shark fins, not to mention enormous piles of antlers, skins, penises, and whole dried animals. Though I tried many different approaches, no one would talk to me…I was clearly an outsider and not to be trusted. (Had I managed to garner the trust of one of the shop owners, I would have certainly included them in the piece). This experience made me even more impressed and appreciative of the hard work that the folks at Project Seahorse are doing, and exhausted at the thought of how far they still have to go to convince fisherman and governments around the world not to decimate their seahorse populations.

But whereas Project Seahorse must be measured and careful in their approach to these conversations about TCM in order to make headway, I feel that in this blog I can be more forthcoming about my feelings about the use of these animals, and all animals, in TCM.

Of course TCM has a rich history dating back at least 2,000 years, and at least a quarter of the world's population uses this form of medicine. I myself find acupuncture and herbal remedies to be very helpful and do not wish to debunk the efficacy of at least those two parts of the tradition. But I personally draw the line at the use of animals, because I'm a huge animal lover, and I am absolutely appalled at the use of endangered or threatened species for any use. This planet may have seemed endlessly bountiful 2000 years ago, but today we can no longer afford to take the survival of non-human species for granted. To add salt to the wound, it is my understanding that China does not, as of yet, perform the kind of rigorous testing of these products that we must perform for drugs in the U.S. to determine their effectiveness. (This is why we get products from China with arsenic in them, for example). One of the main uses of dried seahorses (and many other dried animals) in TCM is for male virility, though I do not believe there have been any studies that actually prove it has any effect on virility. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s dumbfounding that a country with an official one-child policy, which has led to female infanticide levels that have caused a significant gender imbalance in China, thinks they need to ingest threatened and endangered species to improve the potency of their male population. Let's put the pieces together here folks.

Ok, I'm going to get off my soapbox now, since I'm getting into territory that I am certainly not an expert in. But I did want to present this topic for open discussion – since that's what blogs are for. But before you get too riled up, let me suggest a few websites for further research.

First of all, learn what you can do to help save seahorses by signing on to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seahorse Conservation Page. You can also brush up on the specific uses of Endangered Animals in Traditional Chinese Medicine with this informative paper on Encyclopedia's “Advocacy for Animals” site.

TRAFFIC (The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network) has a new Chinese-language textbook aimed at raising awareness on how to best protect threatened species used in TCM. Lastly, check out The World Wildlife Fund’s FAQ page on Traditional Chinese Medicine.

And that’s just to get you started…the web has plenty of information on this topic…read it and tell your friends!

Watch the Seahorse Sleuths television story online.

New instruments hook to the underwater lab.
Credit: David Fierstein © 2005 MBARI

We heard about the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's new underwater laboratory in a radio story last fall. When that story aired, the lab (known as the Monterey Accelerated Research System, or MARS) was just getting going, with lots of neat experiments planned. Now, few of those have become a reality.

In case you missed the first story, the MARS is essentially an underwater data hub, perched on the ocean floor almost 3,000 feet below the surface of Monterey Bay. A 32-mile cable connects the system to land, acting as a power cord and data link. Several "underwater extension cords" allow a variety of instruments to plug into the hub, getting power from land and sending back data via the cable. That constant connection is a big step forward in undersea science; without it, researchers have had to use boats to stay physically close to their instruments (something hard to do for very long), or have sent the instruments off on their own, relying on batteries to keep them running and collecting data.

Until late February, earthquake scientists at the UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory had been using that second method with their seafloor seismic station, the Monterey Ocean Bottom Broadband (MOBB). "We had to wait three months to even know if the instruments were alive," said Barbara Romanowicz, the lab's director. But the MOBB is now plugged in to the MARS system, and is transmitting its information about earthquakes in real-time.

That new stream of information could be especially valuable in California, because the MOBB provides a unique view of the main fault system, the San Andreas, which runs along the Northern California coast. Most seismometers are land-based, and therefore positioned on the east side of the fault. The MOBB is on the west side of the fault, offering a helpful perspective on the fault's shifts and shakes.

The researchers hope that the MOBB's new stream of real-time data will improve their earthquake models, and perhaps eventually help provide early warnings about impending quakes (for more on that topic, see the TV story, Earthquakes: Breaking New Ground).

The MOBB is just one instrument using the MARS hub. A tool that uses sound waves to track fish is currently attached, and within the next six months you can expect to see a robotic DNA lab and a robot that crawls along the seafloor, collecting data on animals that live in the mud.

Scientists gather samples on the ocean floor.
Credit: Roger Linington.There's nothing new about looking to nature to cure disease – we've been doing it for thousands of years, with good results. (Two recent examples: The active ingredient in aspirin was first identified in the bark of the willow tree. And we have the Pacific yew tree to thank for one of the strongest anti-cancer drugs out there, Taxol.)

What's different about the work being done at the UC Santa Cruz Chemical Screening Center is that it a) looks to a largely unexplored medical resource: the ocean, and b) uses robots, rather than "forlorn-looking grad students" (to quote Center director Scott Lokey) to run the tests.

Here's a video I shot of one of those robots in action, with Lokey narrating.

One thing that didn't make it into the piece is that these researchers — including Lokey and Roger Linington — aren't just studying every disease they can think of. They focus on the diseases that commercial drug companies tend to neglect because there's so little profit in treating them – things like African sleeping sickness and cholera. So far, they're seeing progress on both, as well as breast cancer.

Listen to the Medicine from the Ocean Floor radio report online and check out images from this story in an online slideshow.

The Eye in the Sea. Credit: MBARI.

The Eye in the Sea is one of the coolest, gee-whiz scientific projects you'll see. It's part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute's so-called MARS project (that stands for Monterey Accelerated Research System). MARS is an undersea laboratory, set up deep on the sea floor about 30 miles offshore from Monterey.

The Eye in the Sea is one of the first research projects to be hooked up to MARS. It uses a small amount of red light to view what’s happening on the ocean floor, about 3,000 feet below the surface. The images travel through 32 miles of cable and go back to the control center on land, where researchers view real-time video of life at the "benthic" level – that is, a voyage to the bottom of the sea.

And you're going to be able to take that voyage, too.

Schoolchildren, teachers and eventually the general public will be able to see the spindly-legged crabs calle spiny kings, or the eel-like hagfish, or the giant, dark, blob-like Pacific sleeper shark.

The Eye in the Sea becomes operational in January, and researchers expect to have their school program up and running by late January or early February, depending on the success they have hooking up Eye in the Sea to the metal hub out in the middle of Monterey Bay.

All of that means that the public will be able to go to www.mbari.org beginning sometime in February and view video-cam images from half a mile deep on the sea floor.

How cool is that?

Watch video from the Eye of the Sea in the Underwater Laboratory audio slide show online.

For these notes, I thought I'd focus on something that didn't make it into the sea lions radio broadcast: the necropsy.

Each year the Marine Mammal Center treats somewhere between 600-1000 animals, including California sea lions, Pacific harbor seals, Northern elephant seals, and steller sea lions. About half of them are treated successfully at the center and released into the Pacific. The other half either die naturally or have to be euthanized.

Most of them end up at the center's hospital after passersby spot the animals on the beach and sense something's wrong. (The Marine Mammal center responds to calls anywhere between Mendocino and San Louis Obispo Counties — some 600 miles of coastline.) Some problems are human-caused, like boat-propeller injuries or ingested fishing nets and hooks. Other times, it's cancer, domoic acid poisoning, or increasingly these days, leptospirosis. Sometimes, it's hard to tell exactly what happened — hence the need for necropsies.

On the day that Quest intern Jennifer Skene and I visited the center, veterinarian Nicola Pussini performed two necropsies, both on sea lions. One animal seemed to have died from a tumor underneath his fin; the other was a suspected domoic acid intoxication.

Each necropsy takes about an hour and a half. First Pussini measures the animal, then he slices it open and inspects every part, from tongue to tail. He inspects the teeth, pulls out all the organs, checks to see how much fat the animal has. The data, along with tissue samples, are archived and shared with other research institutions. This is the kind of basic research that Marine Mammal Center staff cite when people ask why they devote so many resources (most of it from private donations) to animals whose populations are neither threatened nor endangered.

I should mention that I didn't exactly see this entire process firsthand. Let's just say that after my first strong whiff of sea lion intestine, I felt a compelling need to go check on things outside the necropsy room. Luckily for me, Jennifer has the stomach of a true scientist and managed to both hold the microphone and take photos. Luckily for you, we’re sparing you her gorier shots.

Watch the Sea Lion Rescue audio slide show online.

It's hard to imagine the scope and breadth of the Great Garbage Patch that lies in the North Pacific Gyre in the Pacific Ocean between the West Coast and Hawaii. It's estimated to be about double the size of Texas. Most people think of it as an island of trash, but that's not accurate. It's floating debris – about 80 percent of it plastic, according to Charles Moore of Algalita Marine Research Foundation – that is caught between ocean currents. And that debris is getting thicker and thicker in the water.

The current flows eastward at the bottom (southern end) of the Gyre, and westward along the top (northern edge) of the Gyre. And another current runs northward right along the West Coast. In the center of all of those currents is the Gyre, and that's where all the debris drifts. It's like the center of a hot tub where bubbles tend to form. Because of all of the garbage in the Gyre, Moore says it’s "like a toilet bowl that never flushes."

So it's not a matter of this giant area getting any bigger. The concern is that the area will become much denser with plastic, given the increasing amount of plastic and other detritus going into our ocean. Plastic doesn't biodegrade, but it does degrade into smaller pieces, and those pieces are making the water in the Gyre a lot thicker and soupier. Right now, Moore says, there are places in the Gyre where plastic bits outnumber plankton 6 to 1.

There are five Gyres in oceans around the world, and data is just starting to be collected on how much trash and plastic are in all of them. Moore pegs the estimated amount of plastic in the North Pacific Gyre at 3 million tons.

What can be done about it? Biologists and environmentalists all have similar suggestions. Make less trash. Bring your own cup to the coffee shop. Use paper to-go containers at restaurants. Bring your own reusable bags to the grocery store. Recycle plastic containers. Try not to use single-use plastic water bottles. And volunteer for a beach cleanup, since the trash washing up on the beaches is pretty constant.

Listen to the Sea of Plastic radio report online, and find additional resources and links.

On July 16th, my Mom and I left San Francisco by boat to tour the Southeast coastal islands of Alaska. I have been hearing stories about the untamed Alaska since I was a small child. My mom lived in Kodiak as a girl. Her father and my grandfather had his last tour of Naval duty on Kodiak. His assignment was to survey the numbers of Kodiak bears for the sake of conservation. So I was more than eager to see the wildness and wildlife of Alaska.

While at sea, I've seen common Alaskan wildlife. Humpbacks have spouted and breached, raven and eagles have dived at the water for a dinner of spawning salmon. But I keep looking at the water, hoping to glimpse Orcas. The next opportunity to do so will be tomorrow coming out of the port of Victoria, British Columbia. Orcas, or killer whales as they are commonly known, are not whales at all. They are the largest species of the dolphin family and they are prominent along the Southeast islands of Alaska. They have captured the spirit of natives in these lands. They are alive in their legends and are carved into totem poles that are being preserved in the towns and museums along the coast. Both the native people here and Orcas form matriarchal societies and many native people believe that members of their tribe are reincarnated as killer whales.

Resident Orcas are just one type of Killer Whale. Three groups of Orcas have been found to be genetically separate on the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA level here. Resident Orcas stay close to the shore of the Alaskan islands in herds of up to 200. They have strongly bonded familial ties and are the fisherman of the Orcas, as their diet consists only of fish. Transient Orcas, on the other hand, live also in groups of up to 200 but will split off for the sake of the hunt. They hunt small marine mammals and migrate a great deal more, going where they can find food. While residents have a small and predictable migration route, transients are harder to research because of an unpredictable migration route. Researchers in Alaska have been able to collect more data on resident pods because of their predictability. They identify each individual by their Saddle-patch, or the white markings adjacent to the dorsal fin. It is like a fingerprint, identifying individual Orcas. The third group of Orcas is even more elusive than the transient pods. They are known as the Offshore Orcas. They are known as the rogue of the species and have been very difficult to research because of their unpredictability and often solo migration.

I am most interested in Orcas because of the question of Orca culture. They are seen as very intelligent animals by Native tribes as well as researchers. There is a controversy in the scientific field if Orcas have culture. Traits of fishing or hunting seem to be passed down to offspring denoting learning and hence culture. However, the science community is still split on learning behavior. One story I heard while here paints them as creatures of learning and remorse. One sick Orca was found in a pod. Fisherman noticed the other pod-mates line up and the sick Orca went through the line giving attention to each pod member and then left the pod after what looked like "saying his goodbyes". Was this a goodbye ritual for sending off a dying pod-mate? Whether is was or not, such unusual behavior is well worth more research. Hopefully, I will be able to see some of their behavior myself before returning to San Francisco.