Looking Below The Waves

On The Animals Living On The Oregon Coast

They were going out to place mussels. It was for a long term study on the small bivalves that seem ever present along the West Coast. A group of us sat further in from the rough ocean as someone else went to go find the study sites closer to the breaking waves. A light mist was beginning to fall but it was hard to tell if it was from the sky or from the heavy rushing waves that crashed beside us on this thin stretch of higher rock. The two leads, Sarah and John, told the group to file little notches into the mussels. The idea, John told us, was that as the months pass the mussels will regrow that area, essentially creating a scar that they can measure over time. That, combined with weather data like ocean temperatures and more, they can slowly begin to understand how weather patterns impact their growth. This one study, John said, has been around for decades.

The waves were heavy so Sarah Gravem, Oregon State University professor and sea star biologist, went out to check how one of the field researchers was doing as they tried to find the mussel sight. The rest of us sat there, chatting excitedly away as the waves kept crashing, formidable and heavy. We talked about where we were all from, places we’d been, interspersed with little facts about this place and the creatures that live here. Gumboot chitons, small to large creatures that look like ancient shells latched onto rocks—creatures that seem immovable from the rocks. Mussels, obviously, which were scattered everywhere, along with a few different kinds of barnacles, the occasional ochre or six legged sea star, giant green sea anemones, purple sea urchins covering many of the remaining pools of water, and sometimes a little shore crab shuttling away from view. It seemed as though every creature that lived out here in these waters were animate stones—to our eyes, slow moving creatures that latched onto and blended with the craggy rocks of the coastline in order to hide, yes in part from predators like ravens and sea stars, but maybe most normally, the battering of the sea.

We were here early in the morning at a very low tide in order to bring the mussels out. It only happens once, maybe twice a month. Researchers use these moments in order to go out along coastlines and observe, measure, and study whatever strikes their curiosity. It is the moment when those of us on land get to admire and wonder about what goes on below those breaking waves.

For the creatures that live there, however, it is a moment of tested endurance. The animals that live in this area, called the intertidal zone, have to deal without water for hours, sometimes days, at a time. And so, like the gumboot chiton, they latch onto the rocks, close whatever openings they might have, such as the barnacles, holding in what moisture they can, waiting for the ocean to return. But when it does, these animals have to deal with the breaking of the waves themselves. Some creatures, though rarely, have adapted by just breeding fast. Take kelp for instance. Large bull kelp can survive normally for up to a year tops. Rarely do they get older just because the battering of the waves will eventually destroy their footing to the rocky surface below. So, they end up making more kelp which then floats in the waters until eventually they latch onto the rocky surfaces and the process begins again.

Largely, however, many of the creatures have happened to adapt by affixing firmly onto the rocks and holding on literally for dear life. Limpets, chitons, snails, barnacles, mussels, urchins, have all in some form or another adapted in this way. 

The animals that live in the intertidal zone, I’d say, are insane. 

The amount of fortitude they have to have, the generations of selection that has made them, is truly a wonder. Walking down with this group of scientists, I was excited to see what it was that they were up to, and incredibly interested in whatever Gravem wanted to show me as well. However, what shook me most of all was that here, in these big, freezing, shaking waters, lived millions of little forms of life flourishing in their own unique and slow ways, against literally every odd that they could possibly face. 

As we finished filing most of the mussels, Gravem and the other field researcher came back to the group. She told us we couldn’t put out the mussels. The waves were so big that, even with this low tide, they were breaking over the study site. So, we packed up our things, the rest of the group heading to another graduate student’s research area as Gravem and I wandered around isolated pools talking about sea stars and their powerful impact on this zone as one of the key predators. 

The story about the sea stars will come eventually. But, for now, I’ll sit in wonder, whether in Oregon or California, that so many creatures survive in such an inhospitable place, let alone thrive as many do.

purple sea urchin using rocks to hide from the sun