Purpose: Since unforgettable terror of the movie Jaws, beach goers have long held a unconscious fear of the territory below the surface of the water. The crippling fear of great white sharks, jelly fish and electric eels have kept many from the water. This week, Scientific AmeriKen will face these fears as a snorkeling experiment will take them deep into the depths of the unknown.
Hypothesis: It is the hypothesis of this experiment that marine life of any type will be nonexistent. The reason for this is the belief in the lack of an established food chain in the public beach areas. More specifically, Public beach areas typically have sandy bottomed beaches. This gives a lack of support for algae and other plant life to attach and grow in the area. The lack of these "primary producers" will drop the amount of marine life to feed on the plants. Without these other marine life, there will be no reason for predators like sharks and Jelly fish to exist in the area.
Procedure: General procedure for this experiment includes snorkeling in areas generally populated by beach goers and attempting to find and identify marine life.
Observations: Experiment was performed at Zuma Beach in Malibu, California (visibility ~8 ft.) and Emma Wood Beach in Ventura, California (visibility ~2 feet)
Site #1 Zuma: In a span of roughly 30 minutes, 8 fish were seen, although their type was unknown their average size was between 1 and 2 feet. Also spotted were an uncountable number of sand dollars. Nothing else spotted.
Site #2 Emma Wood: In a span of about 15 minutes nothing was seen in the waters of Emma Wood.
Conclusion: Based on these results it
would seem the hypothesis is correct and there is very little to fear in
the oceans. This is of course assuming that the fish seen were in
fact harmless and not a rare breed of blood thirsty salt water Pirhanna.
Although these results are preliminary as they are based basically upon
the results of the Zuma trip, Scientific AmeriKen stands by the results
and will continue to march courageously into the waters!