The rarest fish species in the world had a surf-rockin’ time when the 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake hit a few weeks ago. The quake caused a seismic seiche with waves 10 feet high in the pupfish pool, the only place they live in the wild. The Devils Hole pool is 10 by 25 foot, 500 feet deep, and located in Death Valley, about 70 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.
About 136 pupfish live on a shallow underwater shelf in the geothermal pool, a drastic increase over their small population of 35 in 2013.
Earthquakes as far away as Alaska and Papua New Guinea have agitated the water in Devils Hole, but the 7.1 Ridgecrest quake rocked it more than any other in recent memory. When the second, larger quake struck, video shows the inch-long iridescent-blue pupfish diving deeper into the 500-foot Devils Hole for safety.
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A seismic seiche is water sloshing back and forth, as in a bathtub, due an earthquake. No big deal for the pupfish who evolved to handle seismic sloshing. Biologists think the fish had a 5 second warning before the ground movement back and most were able to dive deeper in the pool to ride out the waves.
Full-grown pupfish weren’t hurt by the waves, but the quake did wipe out newly laid fish eggs and the tiniest of pupfish larvae.
Still, it’s not all doom and gloom for the fish, said Kevin Wilson, an ecologist with the National Park Service.
“We know there’s this short-term negative impact, but a long-term positive impact,” Wilson said. “As organic algae material dies, it can take oxygen out of the water up to where eggs have laid. Earthquakes can reset the system by removing this dying material.”
The earthquake also triggered breeding. The shock of the quake probably caused the fish to release hormones. Afterward the water settled, the fish returned to the pool’s shallow shelf and started spawning.
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