Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
An early drifter, circa 1970s, called a “sea daisy.” Text on one side offers a 50-cent
reward for reporting the date and location where the sea daisy was found, as well
as the serial number, to the USGS. (Francis Parchaso)
tail, were intended to stay on the surface, and half were supposed to sink
to the bottom. Researchers bunched the latter together in groups and at-
tached them to a ring of salt. The salt weight carried them down to the
bottom, then dissolved—releasing these “seabed” drifters to go with the
bottom currents. To keep them from floating back up again, their tails car-
ried a five-gram brass ring. Scientists called the yellow disks with tails “sea
daisies.”
Like messages in a bottle, the drifters went out bearing a return address
and the promise of a reward for information on where and when they were
found. The light ones, floating on the surface like any piece of plastic trash,
ended up among Pacific swells or washed up on ocean beaches. But the
heavy ones all turned up in the bay.
The police heard about the scientists' work. One day, they gave Cono-
mos a call. The police had found a body on an East Bay beach and wanted
him to speculate about where it might have been dumped in the first place.
Those were the days of the gang wars in San Francisco. The gangs as-
sumed, like most casual observers, that anything they tossed off the
Golden Gate would disappear out to sea. But the bodies, heavier than any
drifter, sank; they then hitched a ride on bay floor currents that flow land-
ward, then bloated and popped up in Berkeley. Conomos pointed the po-
lice to the red bridge.
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