Archipelago Center for Science and Sustainability

Archipelago Center for Science and Sustainability Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Archipelago Center for Science and Sustainability, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), 2995 Woodside Road #620933, Woodside, CA.

Archipelago Center conducts research and field surveys from ridge to reef for marine and aquatic ecology and genomics; and engages in advocacy and policy development for sustainable management of fisheries and watersheds.

05/02/2021

The island of Providenciales has the third longest reef in the world, after Belize and Australia. The mountainous Greater Antilles islands of Cuba and Hispaniola protect the reefs from most hurricanes, so they are in decent shape compared to most Caribbean reefs.

03/28/2021

These elephants are dominant ecosystem engineers, shaping the landscape of Kruger National Park in South Africa. Persistent drought has hit the region for much of the past decade, leading to more forced migrations in search of moisture.

03/27/2021

I’m planning to post “Moments of Zen” here on a regular basis. These will be short videos from our travels around the world beginning in 2014. A window while we wait for the world to reopen. Enjoy!

03/15/2021

Coyote

I spent some time today cycling along the San Andreas fault trace. Back in the mid 1800’s, the city of San Francisco des...
06/24/2020

I spent some time today cycling along the San Andreas fault trace. Back in the mid 1800’s, the city of San Francisco designated this as their watershed and built several dams to retain water for the rapidly growing Gold Rush Town. By the early 20th century the need for water had outgrown the peninsula and a mirror of Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hetchy Canyon, was dammed and 180 miles of underground aqueduct was built to supply San Francisco’s needs.

Up on San Andreas dam, you can stand on the fault trace where in 1906 the west side moved 10 feet North, and in 1989 it moved another 6 feet!

Facing North you’ll see on the left(West) the , eroded fault scarp called the Santa Cruz Mtns., which was previously a Pacific Island chain that rafted across to be partially subducted under proto-California. It’s become a transform fault and is headed for a fiery end 20 million years hence in the Aleutian trench.

Facing South, you can see to the left (East) the remains of what was a fault scarp but which has eroded and sagged down to become the alluvial plains of Palo Alto and Silicon Valley. As the Bay opens up between the Hayward and San Andreas faults, the inner scarps sag flat to become Bayshore hills.

It’s kind of chilling to think of Ordovician marine fossils under my West foot and Pleistocene Cave Bear fossils under my East. I do love geosciences and the time machines they provide. Kind of like when as a kid I stared at Rigel in the Orion constellation (926 light years from Earth) through my telescope and imagined their world 9 centuries ago, and how if there was anyone looking back at me they’d be seeing light that William the Conqueror saw when invading Britain.

Summer Solstice 2020
06/22/2020

Summer Solstice 2020

06/22/2020

As our planet passes through the peak of its solar orbit where the North Pole faces the sun, the latest northern hemisphere sunset of the year flamed out in unusual brilliance. Followed mere hours later by an annular solar eclipse visible from Karachi to Osaka, it reminds us of how connected our planet is to all its members, from penguins to elephants to sardines to beetles, from Americans to Chileans to Capetonians to Okinawans.

As the Arctic hits 100.4F, a planetary fever of massive implications, let’s take the energy bubbling up to beat the coronavirus and gross injustices to tackle a global change disaster that will strike the poor and people of color the hardest, not to mention corals, polar bears and tigers. Join your local Sierra Club or World Wildlife Fund chapter, join Archipelago, and let’s make the planet better for all creatures great and small. Cheers!

05/30/2020

I filmed this in late 2016 handheld with no filter. The falls were low that year due to failure of the rains. The drought gripped all of Southern Africa for years, almost running Cape Town dry, until it broke in miraculous fashion in July 2019.

The whole climate structure of Africa is changing rapidly. While large swings in the Sahara-Sahel boundary are common (witness the subtropical aquatic fossils including hippos and crocs in mid Saharan dune fields), these happen over millennia in response to orbital cycle (Milankovitch) forcing.

Today millennial-scale changes are happening in decades, leaving whole cultures and species “mis-climated” (if that’s a word), stranded outside their survivable envelopes. Colonial-era boundaries prevent adaptive migration and rampant unthought-out development fragment habitat for people and species.

But don’t lose hope. People and wild nature are resilient if we give them the chance. I’m working with National Geographic to advise them with a Berkeley team on how to best invest in resilience and protected lands.

05/29/2020

Fog is an amazing thing, and is dramatically affected by global climate change. This bank coming across the Santa Cruz Mountains and Crystal Springs Lake originated in a wind from Alaska. This wind blew along the coast and drove cold Alaskan waters south. Around halfway between Equator and Pole it started to slide westward in the inexorable twist of Coriolus.

As it surged offshore all along the West coast, cool deep waters now uncapped fountained up, and, meeting the warmed air of California, supercooled the suspended transpired and ev***rated v***r. This v***r rose until it breached its condensation height and burst forth into fog like popcorn from a seed.

Warming climates raise the lapse rate and condensation height, so fog forms at higher and higher altitudes. Intensified winds drive larger volumes of water, which churn with deeper fountains of cold bottom water, which in turn can supercharge plankton blooms leading to anoxic death zones. Fog can turn from playful to sinister.

We must not let this happen on our watch.

Photographer’s Note: I’ve wanted for years to capture the fog rolling in on time-lapse with the conifers behind it, sunlight sparkling on the water, with blue above and below. I’ve never seen it this perfect so stuck my head out the roof of my Jeep and got my sun and wind exposure (and shoulder cramps) over the 20 minutes needed to film this. I put my favorite fog poem and fog music to it. Enjoy!

05/25/2020

Our nation is rising, however imperfectly, to meet the challenge posed by the coronavirus pandemic. That needs to be said more often.

05/20/2020

Here I am collecting water samples on estuaries of Hanalei Bay. Stopped at Middles to watch by buddy Laird shred a few!

05/16/2020

Sunrise Over Haleakala Volcano
My first attempt at a time-lapse (note to self: invest in a stand)
We ascended in pre-dawn darkness and I found a place at the summit rim where I could see the rising sun. The strong wind and people jostling about for warmth caused a lot of jitter, but you get the idea...simply majestic.

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2995 Woodside Road #620933
Woodside, CA
94062

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