The pelagic, or open-sea, fisheries of California owe their productivity to the California Current, a stream of water roughly 350 miles wide that flows slowly along the coast from north to south. Off the central California coast and in the Southern California Bight, winds and currents interact seasonally to generate upwellings of deep, cold, nutrient-rich water to the lighted surface of the ocean. Blooms of plankton fertilized by this upwelled water feed the coastal pelagic schooling fishes – sardine, anchovy, and the like – which in turn provide fodder for still other fish and mammals higher on the food chain. What portion of this great, complex aggregation of living matter, or biomass, that does not leave the system in the bellies of migratory animals or fishing boats dies and drifts slowly to the ocean floor, only to be upwelled later to enter the cycle again.