Mark
Zimmermann
NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center
mark.zimmermann@noaa.gov

Mark Zimmermann is a research fishery biologist in the Gulf of Alaska/Aleutians Islands bottom trawl survey group at the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center.  In 1991 he received a MS in Fisheries Science from the University of Washington where he studied long-term growth patterns on sockeye salmon scales from the Wood River lake system in Bristol Bay, Alaska. He graduated from Grinnell College with a BA in Biology in 1986.  Mark’s primary research interest is in quantifying the amount of seafloor that is too steep, rough or rocky for sampling during the AFSC’s fishery-independent, bottom trawl surveys. His efforts in addressing this issue have morphed into assembling a detailed bathymetric map for the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands bottom trawl survey areas.  He is collaborating with the USGS usSEABED program to assemble a similar sediment map and combine it with bathymetry to describe seafloor habitats. Most work is done in Geographic Information System (GIS) software for spatial analysis and map production.  Mark is contributing to the Surviving the Gauntlet aspect of the Gulf of Alaska Project.

Mark has conducted 35 bottom trawl, seafloor mapping, mini-sub and camera cruises along the US west coast shelf and slope, southern British Columbia, the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and the eastern Bering Sea shelf and slope.  He has authored or coauthored articles in the journals of Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, Continental Shelf Research, Marine Ecology Progress Series, ICES Journal of Marine Science, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Fishery Bulletin, and Fisheries Oceanography.