For humans, it's a lousy day to be at sea, with swells large enough to turn a landlubber green at the gills. But for the marine world, days like this are prime for cold-water upwellings that produce an explosion of zooplankton at the base of the Pacific food chain. Oceanographer Bill Peterson peers into a plastic bucket. At first glance, the seawater appears almost clear.
Closer inspection finds tiny translucent creatures, some as small as grains of rice.
Others resemble slender snakes with dark bulging eyes. A Dungeness larva scoots around with crablike movements. There's a lot of different stuff in here. This is the third spring in a row that scientists working out of Newport have encountered a fertile Pacific, a trend that began in one of the wettest Northwest years on record and has continued even as onshore weather patterns this year set the stage for a severe drought. The trend is good news for young salmon now migrating down Northwest rivers en route to the ocean.