Discover the Santa Cruz Wharf: a century-old structure with vibrant fishing history, thriving marine life and modern-day scientific research facilities. The Wharf is the only structure in the US that stretches over a half mile into a national marine sanctuary. Discover greater Santa Cruz: several natural history museums sprinkled throughout Santa Cruz help you understand the area’s natural history and beauty.
The EcoTour takes you to five stops on the Wharf as well as five spots off the Wharf! This tour was created in collaboration with the City of Santa Cruz, the Seymour Marine Discovery Center and the University of California Santa Cruz as part of the Green Wharf Project. We highlight a few stops below but all of them can be read by downloading the mobile app, Mobile Ranger Guides.
The current Santa Cruz Wharf was built in 1914 and was a good design as it has lasted over 100 years!
The Santa Cruz Wharf generates some of its own electricity thanks to the Green Wharf Project.
The wharf is also an oceanographic sampling site. The UCSC Kudela Lab of Biological Oceanography takes water samples from the wharf every week. They samples for phytoplankton and records the water color.
Big Harbor Dreams: In Santa Cruz from the mid-1850s to 1940 the general vision was to be a “Great Seaport.” It never happened, though a small craft harbor was built in and opened in 1964.
Hi! Ranger Gaudinski,
Love your website!
My family was hanging out and surfing at Pleasure Point and my son discovered a fossilized crab. The surrounding rock is gray and very fine grained. I read your description of Santa Cruz mudstone and was wondering if you thought what he found was that. He would love to know how old it is.
Thanks,
Matt