Marine Biology on the Pacific Coast 

 microscopic organisms, principally dinoflagellates 

 of one species, Gonyaulax polyedra (text figs. 12, 

 13), which becomes so abundant as to discolor the 

 sea for several miles off-shore and thus causes 

 great belts of "red water" which extend for con- 

 siderable distances up the coast. At night they give 

 a remarkable display of yellowish-green light in 

 the breakers, on the sands of the beach, and in 

 the wake of ships. Each passing fish leaves behind 

 it a trail of light to mark its path. This outbreak 

 is accompanied by the death of many of the in- 

 vertebrates of the littoral and bottom fauna in the 

 region of the phosphoresence and by the develop- 

 ment of a penetrating and disagreeable odor at the 

 beaches, due to the decay of the myriads of 

 Gonyaulax. 



Figure 12 Figure 13 



Figure 12. Protozoan (Gonyaulax polyedra) causing red 

 water and phosphorescence along the coasts of southern Cali- 

 fornia. Surface view showing cellulose exoskeleton. Magni- 

 fied 667 diameters. 



Figure 13. The same, showing internal structure, nucleus 

 (n), chromatophores (ch.) yellowish in life, oil globules (o. g.), 

 and flagella for locomotion, transverse (tr. fl.) in the girdle 

 and rotating, and the trailing one (I. fl.) for propulsion and 

 steering, and the ventral pore (v. pc). 



The abundance of pelagic life on this coast in 

 the past is recorded in fossil deposits of infusorial 

 earths rich in the skeletons of diatoms, silicoflagel- 

 lates and radiolarians, found at Santa Barbara, San 

 Luis Obispo, and San Pedro, and now extensively 

 used in the dynamite industry. The pelagic life 

 in the past has also contributed to the deposits 

 from which the petroleum of the California oil- 

 fields is derived. 



The Abalone. — One of the most characteristic 

 molluscs of the Pacific Coast is the abalone or 

 Haliotis which lives on rocky shores from low-tide 

 levels to depths of fifty feet or more. Its huge 

 stout muscle, by means of which it holds firmly to 



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