Archie Williams High School Home of the Peregrine Falcons

 
Do you like beachcombing?  Drake High does occasional patrols of Point Reyes Beach collecting, counting, weighing and photographing plastic debris and the species of marine organisms that stick to it.  We categorize it according to type and origin (recreational, commercial fishing, from foreign ships, from Japan, etc.) and the marine life according to whether it is Japanese, open ocean or Californian.  We can compare our results to data previously obtained on California Coastal Cleanup Day.

The Great Beach at Point Reyes is not like other beaches.  This ten-mile stretch of sand faces northwest, directly into the prevailing westerlies and the California current.  Rocky points bracket it at each end.  Most of the items that wash up here are not local.  Some are from thousands of miles away.  Almost every object tells a story.  We've barely begun, but here are some of the kinds of items we find:

Fishing and crabbing gear from Japan, China, Oregon and Northern California,
Beverage bottles and food containers labeled for domestic consumption in China, Japan, Korea, India (these are most likely tossed overboard by the crews of international ships),
Ball point pens and items with the names and logos of local businesses,
a political campaign sign,
large light bulbs from ships,
children's shoes.

You can estimate how long an object has been floating by the size of the pelagic barnacles on it.

This project is also interesting because 2011 Japanese tsunami debris is still arriving in Oregon.  Maximenko and Hafner's model (ocean current) suggests a 2014 arrival, but Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham's model (current + wind) indicates 2012 (See National Geographic January 2012.)  It looks like Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham were off the mark.

• How much of the debris on Point Reyes Beach comes from international shipping, local fishermen, beach goers, the tsunami, Oregon and Washington, etc?
• When will the Japanese tsunami debris finally start to arrive here?
• What categories of (high-floating?) tsunami debris objects will arrive first?
• What can we learn from the marine organisms (barnacles, etc.) that encrust the debris?