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2011, Oceanography 24(3):8–13, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.84
RIPPLE MARKS—The Story Behind the Story
Author | Stories and First Paragraphs | Full Article | Citation
Author
Cheryl Lyn Dybas, a contributing writer for Oceanography, is a marine scientist and policy analyst by training. She also writes about science and the environment for Natural History, Canadian Geographic, Africa Geographic, BioScience, National Wildlife, The Washington Post, and many other publications, and is a contributing editor for Natural History.
Stories and First Paragraphs
THE GULF OF MAINE: BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE?
Slack Tide for Seabirds
Blindly pressing for a foothold is exactly what Brian Benedict and I are doing on this foggy afternoon, 42 kilometers off the coast of Maine. Benedict is the deputy director of the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, 52 islands scattered across the blue-black frigid waters of the northern Gulf of Maine. On a map of the gulf, which extends from the crooked arm of Cape Cod to the outstretched hand of Nova Scotia's Cape Sable, the islands look like skipped stones that somehow came to rest atop the waves...
Low Tide on a Great Marsh
Miles and miles south of Metinic Island and Matinicus Rock, the land softens. Here at Plum Island, Massachusetts, a 13-kilometer-long barrier island, granite melts into sand dunes, rockweed becomes salt marsh grasses. It's early morning, and I'm once again aboard a small boat, now with Graham Taylor, director of the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, much of which lies along the southern tip of Plum Island, and Chris Husgen, park ranger at the refuge. Before us lies the Great Marsh—its bright green, gold-tipped Spartina grasses splayed as far as the eye can see...
High Tide for an Offshore Island
Between Massachusetts and Maine, some 16 kilometers off the New Hampshire coast, lies the rocky archipelago of the Isles of Shoals. Appledore Island, the largest of the nine islands at 95 acres, is home to the Shoals Marine Laboratory (SML), a seasonal marine field station operated since 1973 by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire (UNH)...
Beyond the Tide
Humpback Whale Catalog #0700, she's called. Better known as "Siphon," she was first sighted in 1988 in the Gulf of Maine. Siphon has been photographed there almost every year since. Here, she's pictured with the third of five of her known calves, "Canine" (right, Humpback Catalog #8447), born in 2004. Siphon's sighting consistency has made her a celebrity with whale-watchers in the northern Gulf of Maine. Individual humpbacks receive their names from particular photo-identification features. At an annual "naming party," titles are suggested and petitioned...
Full Article
Citation
Dybas, C.L. 2011. Ripple marks—The story behind the story. Oceanography 24(3):8–13, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.84.