USC WIES San Pedro Ocean Time-series - SPOT eastern North Pacific Latitude:   33.5500     Longitude:  -118.4000 Associated Investigators: Roberta Marinelli , David Caron ,   Jed Fuhrman ,   Troy Gunderson ,   Diane Kim   Related Web Sites: [dornsife.usc.edu/spot/]   The San Pedro Ocean Time-series (SPOT) was established in 1998 by the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies to study basic oceanographic processes at a near-coastal site in the Southern California Bight. Near Los Angeles, CA, the SPOT station (33 33' N, 118 24' W) provides a unique vantage point to study human impacts on the ocean environment. Biogeochemical and physical water column properties measured monthly by ship demonstrate low surface Chlorophyll a concentrations (< 2 ug/L) year-round. Relatively shallow mixing in winter (MLD max ~ 50 m) stimulates slight increases in Chlorophyll a concentrations in spring. Depth of the deep Chlorophyll a maximum varies seasonally (<20-60 m), and the site is persistently hypoxic (<1 mL/L) below ~300 m down to the bottom of the San Pedro Basin (~890 m). In September 2000, the NSF USC Microbial Observatory (now Dimensions of Biodiversity) began complementing SPOT collections with microbiological (archaea, bacteria, microbial eukaryotes) and virus data.