Monterey Canyon

The headline was dramatic: 'Scientists had an Indiana Jones mixed with Jurassic Park moment.' This was the result of the search for new deep-sea species off the coast of Monterey, CA. What they found, instead, was a mammoth tusk 3,000 feet beneath the ocean's surface. 'An unlikely find,' was how one research scientist put it. Preliminary estimates suggest that the mammoth may have died during the Lower Paleolithic Era, over 200,000 years ago, a poorly understood period of Earth's history. The accidental discovery suggests that the ocean floor could be covered in paleontological treasures that will add to our knowledge of the deep past.

This news story brought back memories for me, especially the part about Monterey, California. While living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970's, a friend & I decided to take scuba diving lessons. Our 'check-out' dives, which were necessary to be certified, took place in Monterey Bay, not far from where the mammoth tusk was discovered. But our certification dives were in kelp forests 60 feet down, nowhere near the 3,000 feet these scientist descended, in a sealed, underwater vessel, no doubt. Humans can't handle diving over 100 feet deep for long.

But when I say, not far, that's exactly the case. As our group was swimming out of the kelp forest, which was absolutely gorgeous and overwhelming, our instructor had us face him and then proceeded to point down. I can only speak for myself, but when I did look down, it took my breath away; no, truthfully, it scared the hell out of me. We were floating 60 feet above a totally black void. Inky-black, no light; like, never-getting-back-black.

After a minute of calming down, adjusting my breathing, and looking around, it was possible to see that 40 feet or so below us, there was a ledge where the seabed gave way to nothingness. I was to find out later, that this was the edge of the Monterey Canyon, and that it falls off more than a mile, straight down. I suppose it was the final test, that if you didn't panic and immediately swim to the surface, you were certified an open-water diver, quite an achievement.

If you google, Monterey Canyon, you'll see what I'm talkin' bout here: the lip of the canyon comes right to the beach at Moss Landing, CA. Here is a link to a video giving a computer-generated view of the canyon. And I was able to cut & paste an arial view of the canyon, below that. [You can see where the very edge of the canyon touches the coastline; that's Moss Landing.]

https://www.mbari.org/science/seafloor-processes/geological-changes/mapping-sections/

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