Bartolome Island
Our equatorial sun rose just before 0600 hours and a small National Geographic Society team left soon after for a morning exploration of the Isla Bartolome’s marine and land ecosystems.
We did a short hike through spectacular volcanic landscape replete with spatter cones, fresh volcanic flows and tuff cones built of volcanic ash. The spatter cones, seemingly flash-frozen lava fountains with glassy and colorful rocks, were surrounded by the younger lava flows, the contrast of reds and blacks surrounded by light turquoise tropical waters, black and red jagged spires cutting into a deep blue sky inspiring us all. Working with the local Galápagos naturalist I gave a field lecture on the evolution of this spectacular volcanic landscape. This tied in quite nicely to Emma Ridley’s (our Expedition leader) introduction, Paula Tagle’s (naturalist) field presentations, my shipboard PowerPoint lecture on geology, oceanography and climate, and the ensuing discussions on the importance of the Galápagos hot spot in the evolution of the region’s geology.
Soon after, our team was snorkeling along a lava cliff band toward an erosional outlier where a light surf was breaking. We were soon joined by 3 female sea lions which played in the water, blew bubbles at our masks. I did a rolling surface dive and one of the lions came over and proceeded to mimic me move for move and then wait until I did another move. When I surfaced she jumped over me!
The lions tired of us eventually and we proceeded along the cliff band… a group of 11 penguins passing in the subsurface. I was caught off guard by a booby which crashed through the water surface and went down a good 10 meters before turning back towards the surface fish in bill.
The marine substrate was rich in a three species of hard coral, a half dozen sea star species, several colorful sponge species, some interesting encrusting algae. Sea cucumbers were everywhere, as were some cool polychetes! Bryozoans seem to be flourishing in the cool nutrient rich water. Moorish idols, parrot fish, puffers and guinea fowl were highlights. We even identified a new triggerfish which brought our fish species count to 80!
On returning to the beach we came across several green sea turtle feeding on green algae in the near shore. The light surge moved them to and fro and they seemed truly unconcerned about our presence. We had to carefully step over the marine iguanas as we made our way back to kits for changing into land clothes.
Once back on the sand beach, we proceeded to walk across the isla to another beautiful bay. The tide was out and we had a grand intertidal observation of several urchin species, three anenomie species and a brilliant colonial tubeworm. The vermillion encrusting sponge was a mysterious color favorite.
Following our snorkel, it was cool to be in the Galápagos equivalent of a tropical dry forest. In my biodiversity lecture yesterday we discussed how important the Galápagos are with respect to phylogenetic evolution (in the classical Darwinian sense) and also, ecosystem evolution (with respect to island biogeography theory) and this was a perfect moment to see both the island’s unique lava lizards and the arid adapted vegetation communities with mainland affinities.
Our equatorial sun rose just before 0600 hours and a small National Geographic Society team left soon after for a morning exploration of the Isla Bartolome’s marine and land ecosystems.
We did a short hike through spectacular volcanic landscape replete with spatter cones, fresh volcanic flows and tuff cones built of volcanic ash. The spatter cones, seemingly flash-frozen lava fountains with glassy and colorful rocks, were surrounded by the younger lava flows, the contrast of reds and blacks surrounded by light turquoise tropical waters, black and red jagged spires cutting into a deep blue sky inspiring us all. Working with the local Galápagos naturalist I gave a field lecture on the evolution of this spectacular volcanic landscape. This tied in quite nicely to Emma Ridley’s (our Expedition leader) introduction, Paula Tagle’s (naturalist) field presentations, my shipboard PowerPoint lecture on geology, oceanography and climate, and the ensuing discussions on the importance of the Galápagos hot spot in the evolution of the region’s geology.
Soon after, our team was snorkeling along a lava cliff band toward an erosional outlier where a light surf was breaking. We were soon joined by 3 female sea lions which played in the water, blew bubbles at our masks. I did a rolling surface dive and one of the lions came over and proceeded to mimic me move for move and then wait until I did another move. When I surfaced she jumped over me!
The lions tired of us eventually and we proceeded along the cliff band… a group of 11 penguins passing in the subsurface. I was caught off guard by a booby which crashed through the water surface and went down a good 10 meters before turning back towards the surface fish in bill.
The marine substrate was rich in a three species of hard coral, a half dozen sea star species, several colorful sponge species, some interesting encrusting algae. Sea cucumbers were everywhere, as were some cool polychetes! Bryozoans seem to be flourishing in the cool nutrient rich water. Moorish idols, parrot fish, puffers and guinea fowl were highlights. We even identified a new triggerfish which brought our fish species count to 80!
On returning to the beach we came across several green sea turtle feeding on green algae in the near shore. The light surge moved them to and fro and they seemed truly unconcerned about our presence. We had to carefully step over the marine iguanas as we made our way back to kits for changing into land clothes.
Once back on the sand beach, we proceeded to walk across the isla to another beautiful bay. The tide was out and we had a grand intertidal observation of several urchin species, three anenomie species and a brilliant colonial tubeworm. The vermillion encrusting sponge was a mysterious color favorite.
Following our snorkel, it was cool to be in the Galápagos equivalent of a tropical dry forest. In my biodiversity lecture yesterday we discussed how important the Galápagos are with respect to phylogenetic evolution (in the classical Darwinian sense) and also, ecosystem evolution (with respect to island biogeography theory) and this was a perfect moment to see both the island’s unique lava lizards and the arid adapted vegetation communities with mainland affinities.
