Everyone at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant knew that Professor Rikk Kvitek was authorized to enter the restricted coastal waters around the plant – except the guards with the M-16s. Dr. Kvitek was aboard CSU Monterey Bay’s newest research vessel, the KelpFly, a highly modified 160-horsepower Yamaha watercraft used for seafloor mapping. He was gathering data on underwater fault lines near the plant to help assess geologic hazards – information critical to public safety, especially in light of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami that damaged Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in March 2011. “I was in a zone where guards were authorized to take lethal action against intruders,” Dr. Kvitek explained. “The radios were going nuts with reports of ‘some guy on a jet ski.’ ” Dr. Kvitek has previously mapped 1,200 square kilometers of California’s coastal waters, providing detailed topographical data of the seafloor extending three miles from the coast. The KelpFly, named for an insect species that lives on kelp, allows him to gather data in areas just along the shore that his larger vessels can’t access. “These are some of the most important areas to understand because lots of animals live there, it is where coastal erosion and sediment transfer occur, and it is where people play,” Kvitek said. The $300,000 craft can maneuver in water as shallow as 18 inches. It features an armored hull that allows it to bounce off rocks unharmed and a floatation collar that makes it stable in surf. To navigate kelp, Dr. Kvitek mounted a customized aircraft fan engine to the back of the vessel. The fan provides enough thrust to push the hull over the kelp forest without damaging the plants or clogging up the motor. It also carries an array of sonar equipment and a laser mapping system that scans the shore to generate seamless land-to-sea topographic maps.

The Navy is interested in mapping the near-shore habitat that supports black abalone, a threatened species, and locating sand channels amidst reefs and kelp forests where they can run communication cables without harming the environment or causing wear on the cables. They also will use the maps to plan amphibious vessel landing trainings and mini-submarine explorations. CSUMB students participate in all this research, and Dr. Kvitek makes sure Seafloor Mapping Lab projects have enough funding to pay them for their work. Students assisted with construction and deployment of the vessel, and process the data it collects.

“Students learn to turn out a professional product that’s of great need and value for resource management agencies at the local, state and federal level,” he said. “I take them out on the KelpFly when I can. But I don’t let them drive it. The ability to go really fast – it goes up to 60 mph – in a short amount of time on a $300,000 vessel . . . I’m not ready to turn them loose on that,” he said.

Learn more about the Seafloor Mapping Project here.