HydroBeta

The figure at right shows shows VSF?s measured October, 2002, in Monterey Bay, California.  Monterey Bay encompasses a wide range of water types, from river outflows and shallow, turbulent near-shore areas, to waters upwelling from the deep ocean, to clear oceanic waters.  The latter are found within a deep submarine canyon that bisects the Bay.  On this deployment, the variety of optical properties was further enhanced by a large ?red tide? bloom in the Soquel Cove area of the Bay.  The measured values varied over a range of almost 2 orders of magnitude.

The profile at right (October 4, cast 4) is the source of the VSFs above labeled "Canyon Surface Chl Layer (20 m)", "Canyon Scattering Layer (100 m)", and "Canyon Scattering Minimum (60 m)".  We know from simultaneous fluorometer measurements that the region around 20 m depth was high in chlorophyll and therefore high in living microorganisms.  Note that the overall level of scattering within that layer is similar to that of the prominent layer at about 100 m.  Yet the VSF curves for the two are significantly different, with the shallower VSF skewed more toward forward angles.