Duxbury Reef, Marin County, California

Extract from State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife website

Duxbury Reef State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) sits at the southern end of the Point Reyes peninsula, just a mile west of Bolinas in Marin County, California. Despite being one of the smallest marine protected areas (MPAs) on the California coast at less than three-quarters of a square mile in area, this SMCA hosts one of the largest shale reefs in North America. Duxbury Reef was selected for inclusion in the statewide MPA network in part due to the extensive tidepool network that forms on the shale reef at low tide.

Numerous intertidal animals live in the tidepools, including turban snails, anemones, sea stars, small fishes such as blennies, and nudibranchs, which are tiny, colorful sea slugs. Today, the tidepools remain one of the most expansive and accessible examples of intertidal habitat in the region, due to the wide, flat intertidal zone that exposes a diverse array of creatures to extreme environmental conditions.

The reef is named for the schooner Duxbury, a three-masted ship loaded with gold-seekers that wrecked on the reef in 1849.

MPA size: 0.69 square miles

Shoreline span: 2.8 miles

Depth range: 0 to 10 feet

Habitat composition: Rock: 0.06 square miles Sand/mud: 1.52 square miles

The "Habitat" calculations are based on the three-dimensional area and may exceed the total MPA area.

This article notes that the schooner Duxbury was wrecked on the reef in 1849, however Joe Duxbury suggests that this is incorrect. Others say that the ship was refloated by the passengers and crew and sailed into San Francisco on 22 August 1849; apparently she sailed from San Francisco in November of that year.

For more information please refer to the State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife website.