Schmieder Bank

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A rocky bank west of Pt. Sur, roughly 25 nm south of Monterey, California, supporting an extraordinarily lush biological community, including the largest colonies of the California hydrocoral in the world.

The bank lies about 3 nm WSW offshore from Pt. Sur. Within the 75 m contour, the bank is roughly elliptical, with major axis NW-SE, enclosing an area of about 1 square nm. The surface of the bank is a surf-erosional plateau, punctuated by a series of narrow ridges (running approximately parallel to the major axis), and several extremely sharp isolated pinnacles. Minimum depths are 36 m (one location) and 40 m (at least 4 locations).

The Bank was first explored by divers during 1988-91 by Cordell Expeditions, organized and led by Dr. Robert Schmieder. That work generated a general description of the bank, summarized in an unpublished report [Schmieder, 1989]. Because of the exceptionally rich biological community, the boundary of the proposed Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was extended to include the Pt. Sur area. The Bank is similar in many respects to Cordell Bank [Schmieder, 1991], and has become a desirable, but difficult, goal for scuba divers.

During 1986, NOAA carried out a high-resolution multibeam survey of the area as part of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) program [NOAA, 1986], and during 1998 the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) contracted to carry out a high-resolution (5 m horizontal) survey.

Schmieder Bank was named on Oct. 15, 1990, by the U. S. Board on Geographic Names, following a recommendations by Dr. Melanie Stright (U.S. Minerals Management Service), Dr. Paul Silva (UC Berkeley) and Dr. Sylvia Earle (NOAA Chief Scientist).