The Whale Museum and San Juan Nature Institute are pleased to host Gary Greene for a lecture on July 30.  Professor Greene will discuss “The Sea Floor Around Us” on Thursday, July 30 at 6:30 p.m. at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. Formerly the Director of the Moss Landing Marine Labs on Monterey Bay in California and currently a research faculty member at Friday Harbor Labs, Greene has pioneered sophisticated interpretive sonar techniques to map the sea floor in many regions of the Pacific Ocean.

Now working with SeaDoc Society and heading its Tombolo Mapping Lab on Orcas Island, he has been making high-resolution 3D images of the Salish Sea floor. In the process, he has uncovered previously unknown benthic habitats and discovered geological features such as submarine faults and folds.

Greene will bring alive the deep undersea world around us through his exquisitely detailed maps which reveal the habitats of rockfish, Pacific sand lance, and other organisms critical to the local marine food chain. Greene has also discovered a significant new geological fault he dubbed the Skipjack Island Fault, which begins near South Pender Island and extends eastward to pass between Orcas and Sucia Islands.

He will discuss his current research on this and other local submarine faults, including whether or not they might be active.

This event is free and open to the public.

For information, call 378-4710 ext. 30. or visit the museum website at www.whalemuseum.org.