![]() These zones are biological phenomena that appear to be related to the rise and fall of the sea, and in attempts to verbally label these stratifications as they relate to tides, they have been given various names by various authors. They are segregated into horizontal bands or “zones” across the vertical rock surface, beginning high up with small barnacles and a few snails and limpets, progressing downward through the dichotomously branched seaweed Pelvetiopsis and the Nori seaweed Porphyra, into a band of thatched barnacles, mussels, and gooseneck barnacles, downward still to a zone that includes ocher stars and some large-bladed seaweeds such as Hedophyllum, and finally to the colorful anemones, encrusting sponges, sea urchins, jelly-like colonies of tunicates, other large-bladed seaweeds like Laminaria and Lessoniopsis, among many other both stationary and crawling organisms. What is immediately obvious to these explorers, and almost anyone observing our rocky coast at low tide, is that these creatures are not evenly distributed. The first paragraph in our discussion of tides (found in the section: Coastal Processes) introduces us very briefly to tide pools and biological zonation and shows this picture of curious adults and children at low tide marveling at the animals and seaweeds clinging to the steep faces of massive rocks. ![]() ![]() Tide pools, those ponds of seawater found among the rocky outcrops of the Pacific Northwest coast containing facinating assemblages of intertidal organisms, are a major spring and summer attraction for thousandd of people, both local and inland visitors to our shores.
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