California's north-central
coast is famous for
its natural splendor.

Here, on the very edge of
the North American continent,
steep cliffs meet the vast

Pacific Ocean.

Only 50 miles northwest of
San Francisco's famous Golden
Gate Bridge, yet light years

away from the hustle and bustle
of the human world, lies a
magical underwater island few

people have ever heard of.

It's sensory overload.

I've never seen so much color,
I didn't know where to look.

Pinks, purples, oranges,
even blues and greens,
it's just mind blowing.

Every single square inch
of reef is covered by
some sort of invertebrate.

In some places you've got
sponges growing on top of
corals on top of anemones.

There was the biggest school
of fish that I've ever seen.

Anywhere.

It's truly amazing.

This is the Cordell Bank
- an underwater oasis that
is an ecological Eden.

It is a shallow bank
located at the edge of
the continental shelf.

Cordell Bank is the
seabird capital of the
Northern Hemisphere.

Seabirders come from
all over the world.

Europe, Asia, Africa,
just to do pelagic seabird
trips out to Cordell Bank.

It's been documented that
whales and seabirds will migrate
from thousands of miles away

to feed at Cordell
Bank because the ocean
there is so productive.

We receive birds from New
Zealand, turtles from Indonesia,
albatross from Hawaii, they

all come here to feed.

Something's got to be right
for all of these birds,
these whales to come here.

What makes this unique
location so special?

And what is done to research
and protect this place?

Major funding for this program
was provided by the Batchelor
Foundation, encouraging people

to preserve and protect
America's underwater resources.

And by The William J. &
Tina Rosenberg Foundation,
The Do Unto Others Trust,
and by the following.

Hidden beneath a surface that
is often shrouded in fog, the
Cordell Bank is located 20 miles

due west of the Point
Reyes Lighthouse.

It is a pretty spectacular
place in that it has the bank,
which is about four miles across

by about nine and a half miles
long, which comes up a couple
hundred feet from the soft

sediment of the
continental shelf.

So, you've got this feature,
in the middle of all of the
soft sediment that provides

hard substrate for
organisms to live on.

The shallowest
point is 115 feet.

But from there, it drops.

Most of the shallow
area on the bank is
between 130 and 160 feet.

For centuries, this
underwater gem lay
hidden beneath the waves.

George Davidson, who worked
for the U.S. Coast Survey, was
the first to discover the bank

in 1853 - shortly after
California became part
of the United States.

Sixteen years later he sent
out the accomplished surveyor
Edward Cordell to map the bank,

which would later
be named after him.

And then from that point
forward, it was a landmark for
mariners who are coming back

into San Francisco Bay.

But it would be more than a
century later before anyone
else decided to further explore

the area.

In 1977, divers with
the non-profit research
association Cordell
Expeditions began to look

beneath the surface.

We need to give a lot of that
credit to Dr. Bob Schmieder.

He started diving out there
with a group of volunteer divers
for almost 10 years, recording

just the spectacular
biodiversity that's
down on the bank.

And for those of us who just
look at the surface of the water
from the shore, we would have

no idea that that was out there.

Bob brought those images back
and went to Washington, D.C.
and this was right when the

Marine Sanctuary Program
was getting started
and he said, "You know,
this is really a place

that deserves to be recognized
and deserves to be protected
because it's such a spectacular

place."

Acknowledging its ecological
importance, the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration

established the Cordell
Bank National Marine
Sanctuary in May of 1989.

The big driver was the
prohibition of oil and
gas exploration, which
is one of our primary

regulations.

We also have regulations
that prohibit the
disturbance of the seabed.

In 2015, the sanctuary
boundaries were expanded to
areas surrounding the bank.

The sanctuary includes part
of the continental shelf, from
the deep slope habitat and then

to the north, a prominent
submarine feature
called Bodega Canyon.

It's all below the surface so
it's really hidden from view
and I think people are shocked

when they learn that
right off the California
coast there's this area
of incredible underwater

beauty.

National Marine Sanctuaries
are important to protect, not
just for people to visit and

to see, but also because of
the habitats that they protect.

At Cordell Bank National Marine
Sanctuary our science program
is to understand the resources

in the sanctuary and understand
how they might be changing so
that we can provide the best

science information available
for the best conservation.

Since 2004, experts regularly
conduct research at sea as part
of ACCESS, which is short for

"Applied California Current
Ecosystems Studies."

It's a collaboration
between Greater Farrallones
National Marine Sanctuary,
Cordell Bank National

Marine Sanctuary, and Point
Blue Conservation Science.

So, it's unique in that it's
a public - private partnership
and we each bring some resources

and expertise together, and
we're able to do much more
than we could independently.

And the object is to study the
ocean health and that ocean
ecosystem in the sanctuaries.

We try and sample the same time
frame every year so that we
can look at changes over time.

And to do that we survey three
times a year, usually around
May, July and September for

six to ten days at a time.

We want to hit the
beginning of upwelling,
the middle of upwelling,
and right after upwelling.

Wind-driven coastal upwelling
is a physical process and North
America's Pacific coastline

is one of four major upwelling
regions in the world.

We have a persistent
north wind blowing down
the coast of California.

And you would think that wind
would drag the water along with
it, well it does, but we're

living on an earth that's
rotating, and so the surface
layer of the ocean, the top 100

feet or something, is pushed
offshore and you have to replace
that water with something,

so you replace it with
water from underneath.

That cold water welling up from
the deep is rich in nutrients.

These nutrients fuel tiny
surface-dwelling ocean plants
known as phytoplankton, which

form the base of the
marine food chain.

It's like when you put
plant food to your lawn,
upwelling works like that.

It upwells strongest and most
persistently in Point Arena,
and then it flows south and

as it does that the
phytoplankton develops.

It takes about three
to five days for a good
phytoplankton bloom.

And the water will change
colors-starts looking
green or maybe a little
brown, typically green.

And by the time that's
happened the water's moved 100
miles down the coast, which

happens to be where
Cordell Bank is.

And there are a lot
of organisms, krill
for example, they will
feed on these drifting

plants.

And of course they're eaten
by fish and the fish are eaten
by seals or the whales can

be eating krill directly.

So it's a whole ecosystem
building up from
those drifting plants.

That is really the
driver if you will.

What makes Cordell Bank
and many other places
along the west coast of
California so productive

that then draws organisms
from all over the Pacific to
come and feed in this area.

The ACCESS research team
studies how the various
oceanographic conditions
influence the distribution

and abundance of animals.

When we are at sea
we have two teams.

A team that works on the
flying bridge of the vessel.

We have two marine mammal
observers, one on each side.

So, that's a humpback whale.

And they're scanning in a
90-degree quadrant on their
side for marine mammals.

Then we have one seabird
observer on one side
and she's scanning her
90-degree quadrat as

well, and one data recorder.

So when they see a seabird
or marine mammal they call
out a series of codes.

Common murre one,
zone two, water.

That gets entered into the
computer with a GPS location.

Our area here is actually
probably one of the best places
on the west coast for foraging

birds and mammals.

We observe humpback whales
and blue whales and fin
whales, grey whales.

And seabirds like western
gulls, common murres,
shearwaters, storm petrels.

Some of those are resident
birds that breed in this area,
but some of them migrate from

thousands of miles away to feed
in the productive waters here.

We get species from all over the
Pacific including: Indonesia,
New Zealand, Alaska, Hawaii.

For example, albatross will
have chicks on the nest in the
Northwest Hawaiian Islands,

they will come all the way
to Cordell Bank to find food,
and then they turn around and

go back, and then they feed
their chick all within the
breeding season coming all the

way to Cordell Bank and
going all the way back
to the Hawaiian Islands.

And they'll do that
several times throughout
the nesting season.

It's really the best
restaurant on the west coast.

We can be working and
suddenly there's a breaching
whale right next to us.

Or we're working and we see
an ocean sunfish and those are
pretty amazing fish to see.

We have these predetermined
transect lines that we survey
repeatedly each time we go

out.

The spacing of the lines are
so that we don't double count
things, but we want to have them

close enough together so that
we're doing a full coverage.

The boat stops at multiple
stations along these transect
lines so experts can sample

the water column.

The second team works
on the back deck.

We're sampling for the
prey, the zooplankton and
the krill and the fish.

And the stations are selected
so that we can sample all across
the continental shelf, and

then the shelf break,
and then we sample
beyond the shelf break.

The shelf break is an important
feature for seabirds and
marine mammals feeding.

A lot of the food gets
concentrated when the
water upwells there,
so that's a hot spot

for seabirds and marine mammals.

We deploy several nets, a
larger net that we use to
monitor zooplankton in the upper

water column.

And one time on every line,
we deploy a really large net,
and we send that net about

200 meters depth to
sample for krill.

And that goes back to the lab
where all the krill get counted
and sized and identified,

there's a couple different
species that we have.

All the zooplankton goes to a
specialist who will sort that
sample and identify all the

organisms in that sample.

And so we're able to kind of
quantify the water that we
filter with the net and how

much plankton is in that net
and so we get an estimate of
the prey availability to the

seabirds and marine mammals.

We sample the prey directly
using nets or indirectly
using hydroacoustics.

So this computer is the
hydroacoustic computer.

Here we have a
fancy fish-finder.

And we- that operates at
three different frequencies,
and what it allows us
to do is identify where

fish, or where the
krill concentrate.

And then we're also doing
oceanographic sampling.

So look at the temperature
and salinity and
oxygen in the water.

And the objective
is to understand the
ocean ecosystem health.

So we're looking at the
distribution and abundance
of the predators, the
seabirds, and the marine

mammals.

We look at the prey availability
through the zooplankton, the
krill and the fish, and then

we look at the physical
conditions in the ocean.

By compiling these various
layers experts gain a better
understanding of how everything

in the ecosystem ties together.

And that's really how
we can identify those
hots spots of where we
can allow certain things

to happen, where we really
shouldn't be allowing
certain things to happen.

While the sanctuary is actively
protecting local resources, it
still faces global stressors

that might threaten
the area in the future.

One concern is lowered dissolved
oxygen levels in the water
caused by climate change.

While low oxygen levels can
occur naturally, human impacts
have increased the frequency

and severity of low-oxygen
zones worldwide.

If there were a really reduced
level of oxygen at Cordell
Bank like they've seen in other

places like in Oregon, it
could be really detrimental
to the animals, the organisms

that live on the bank, so we've
been monitoring hypoxia, which
means low oxygen, at Cordell

Bank for the past few years.

We haven't seen a huge die off,
but we want to be monitoring
and be able to catch things

before we get to that point.

The ACCESS research team,
together with experts
from the University of
California, Davis Bodega

Marine Laboratory, use
a variety of sensors to
measure the dissolved
oxygen levels throughout

the sanctuary.

Under normal conditions,
surface waters are saturated
with dissolved oxygen
from the atmosphere.

Dead surface-dwelling
plants and animals sink
to the depths and use up
oxygen during decomposition,

making the water that upwells
from the deep naturally
low in dissolved oxygen.

The animals that live down at
depth in Cordell Bank, it's
been millennia - ages that

they've lived there,
they've adapted to it and
everything works fine.

The concern of course
is if we change that.

As ocean surface temperatures
rise with global climate change,
the amount of dissolved oxygen

the water can hold goes down.

It also becomes more difficult
for the oxygen to reach the
colder, deep-water layers.

The surface of the
ocean gets warmer and it
becomes more stratified.

So you need more energy to
mix up the cold water and the
warm water and that also means

that you will mix the
oxygen from the surface
down to depth more slowly.

As a result of that, the oxygen
at depth gets a bit lower.

Meanwhile you're decomposing
just as much material, but
you're not topping it off with

oxygen as rapidly if you
have surface warming.

We do see episodes every
year of hypoxia on the shelf.

In one case we had a report

from a fisherman collecting
crab that the crab were dead.

So it can get low
enough to cause impact.

At this stage that's an unusual
event, but that is the fear
we have for the future if

climate change continues to
decrease the oxygen of the
deep water in the ocean.

Another climate change related
impact affecting the oceans
worldwide is ocean acidification

- an increase in the acidity
of the water caused by
rising carbon dioxide levels.

Ocean acidification is
the change in the ocean
chemistry which makes
carbonate less available

to animals that build shells
and it can cause their shells
to dissolve, or they may have

more difficulty building
shells, it may be a stressful
environment for them.

So, this could really affect
the entire food chain.

So we are starting to
see impacts especially
on some of the larval
forms that are out there

and they're extremely
vulnerable in the early
stages of their life.

If acidification started to
impact things like krill who
use the carbon to form their

carapace,

if those krill were to
go away, salmon would
be negatively impacted.

Our whole ecosystem would kind
of get tilted, if these impacts
of ocean acidification continue.

It would affect everything
from the plankton in our local
ecosystem to the top predators,

like the whales and seabirds.

To measure the acidity of
the water in the sanctuary,
University of California Davis

Ph.D. Candidate Carina Fish
collects water samples during
the ACCESS research trips.

And that helps us understand
how changes in the water column
have been going on for the

past, say, decade or so.

Carina is also studying how
ocean acidification may impact a
species of deep sea corals that

was recently discovered in the
depths of the Bodega Canyon,
which lies north of the Cordell

Bank.

Named after their skeleton,
bamboo corals are long
lived and slow growing.

We've seen them as
deep as 1800 meters.

It's very cold and
it is also very dark.

The water down there
is probably around like
four degrees celsius.

They rely solely on the
marine snow falling from
above as their food source.

Marine snow is made up of
dead phyto and zooplankton
- tiny marine plants
and animals that are

sinking down into the deep.

We're not seeing - the
polyps would be on top of
the skeleton, so this is

just the actual bone-like
structure of them.

And the reason why I'm so
particularly interested
in the skeleton is
because it has a lot of

history that it records in it.

So the chemistry of this
organic node, this black part
here, records the life cycle of

the coral and also the
environment in which it grew
up in and the diet that it ate.

They're going to be
anywhere from like 100
years old to 400 years old.

So that's actually the
beauty of deep sea corals.

It's not just the past
maybe decade or so that
we've been monitoring.

They give us a nice
400-year record.

The fear is that as ocean
acidification worsens
in the upper layers
of the ocean, it will

impact the zooplankton the
corals rely on as a food source.

It could either be there
are less amount of the
available food or it
could be the nutritional

value of that food sinking
down isn't as high.

So that's what I'm
investigating currently.

The corals rely on the
plankton, and the plankton
rely on the ocean conditions.

And so if you're able to
understand the oceanographic
conditions that you're
seeing, the plankton

communities that you're seeing,
and the corals themselves,

you can actually
understand better

holistically what the
ecosystem is doing.

It's really important as
stewards of the sanctuary for
us to be able to know how the

sanctuary's doing.

What are the status and
trends, so that we can make
decisions about management

that we can use to better
protect the resources
in the sanctuary.

As with any remote or deep
place in the ocean, much is left
to explore inside the Cordell

Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

There is a whole
lot to discover.

'Cause every time we go down
there, we find organisms that
have never been described.

Until a local group of technical
divers became interested in
exploring the site, there had

been almost zero scuba diving on
Cordell Bank, since the Cordell
Expeditions team first explored

it in the 1970s.

Lots of helium.

POV's good.

It had kind of become
like this mythical place.

Everybody had heard about it.

It was supposed to be amazing.

It was impossible to get to.

And so we always
talked about diving it.

BAUE, or Bay Area Underwater
Explorers, is a local affiliate
group to a global organization

called Global
Underwater Explorers.

One of the things that drives us
all is just the urge to explore.

Documenting underwater life,
and basically sharing that with
the world so that they realize

there's a reason to
conserve what's under there.

Diving on the Cordell
Bank requires a highly
specialized skill set,
due to the challenging

depths, currents,
weather conditions, and
remoteness of the site.

It take's special
training, practice and
more importantly being
very familiar with the type

of conditions that
are out there.

Most of the divers have ten or
so years of experience doing
these kinds of dives on the

California coast.

It's typically very cold,
low to mid 50s Fahrenheit.

We need the wind and waves
to be safe enough to get the
divers on and off the boat, and

probably the biggest
unpredictable factor is the fog.

The fog can move in
without any notice.

And so all of our diving
is done live boating.

There's a down line to get
the divers to the structure,
they will go wherever the dive

is going to take them.

And then when they're on their
way back up they'll shoot a
marker buoy so that we can

tag that marker buoy and
then follow them wherever
the currents would take them

and pick them up.

In 2013, after years
of research, planning
and preparation, the
BAUE team was ready to

dive in.

We worked closely with NOAA,
and the Cordell National Marine
Sanctuary team in particular,

really to identify not just
the regulatory steps required
to go out there, but also to

identify a mutually
beneficial goal.

They are a great group of
individuals who have been
collecting important information

from the top of Cordell Bank
for us, and it's been really
a fantastic partnership.

We've collected images,
videos, species, samples.

That first year, we got three
days in a row of perfect
conditions for diving and it was

everything that we
imagined and so much more.

And we got out to the bank
and it was like, "Wow!

I can't believe
we're actually here."

As soon as we dropped in the
water and we're coming on the
bottom and I see just fish

as far as the eye can see,
in every single direction.

You're like a kid
in the candy store.

It's of upmost importance that
the public understands that
these places exist and efforts

to protect these places really
do have a meaningful impact.

Our hope is that by some of
the work that we've done we
can help kind of create that

awareness for people that
aren't necessarily going to
get to see it themselves.

California's Cordell Bank
is a national treasure - one
dedicated individuals and

organizations are working hard
to explore, understand, and
protect for many generations

to come.

As a marine sanctuary,
that's really our mission,
is to maintain these
ocean areas in the best

possible condition that we can.

Major funding for this program
was provided by the Batchelor
Foundation, encouraging people

to preserve and protect
America's underwater resources.

And by The William J. &
Tina Rosenberg Foundation,
The Do Unto Others Trust,
and by the following.