Bodega Marine Laboratory is located on Bodega Head, a prominent peninsula that partially encloses Bodega Harbor on the northwestern shore of Bodega Bay, about 10 miles (16km) south-southeast of Jenner and 1.7 miles (2.7km) southwest of the community of Bodega Bay, California. The headland, harbor, and bay are named after Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, who, as a lieutenant in the Spanish Navy, entered the bay on the Sonora in 1775. The headland is about 4 miles (6.4km) long and 1 mile (1.6km) wide. The southernmost portion consists predominantly of erosion-resistant granitic rock in the Salinian terrane. Since the early Miocene epoch, the Salinian terrane has been detached from the North American margin and translated 186 miles (300km) northwestward along the San Andreas fault to its present position. The terrane comprises four smaller fragments, with the Northern Salinian Block being the fragment exposed along the central-northwestern coast of California. Rocks in this region consist of Early Cretaceous granitic and metamorphic basement, overlain by Late Cretaceous to Holocene sediments. The Bodega Head peninsula represents the northernmost exposure of the granitic basement rocks, but other exposures occur at Point Reyes, Point Lobos, and McWay Falls. The granitic basement consists of quartz diorite and diorite and is intruded by numerous pegmatite dikes. These intrusive rocks are overlain by Quaternary marine terrace deposits, which are tilted towards the northeast, presumably as a result of lateral slip along the San Andreas fault.

The Coast Miwok are Indigenous people who inhabited the coastal fringe of California between the Golden Gate and Duncans Point, a small peninsula about 5 miles (8 km) north of present-day Bodega Bay. Europeans first encountered the Coast Miwok in 1579 when Captain Francis Drake made landfall on the California coast to repair the Golden Hind. The Bodega Bay Miwok were a band of Coast Miwok who lived in villages around Bodega Bay, including Helapattai, Hime-takala, and Ho-takala. Beginning in 1783, Franciscan mission records show that Coast Miwok from the Marin Peninsula began joining Mission San Francisco de Asis. In 1817, Mission San Rafael was founded. By that time, the only Coast Miwok people still on their land were those on the Pacific Coast from Point Reyes north to Bodega Bay. Between 1812 and 1841, the bay was used by the Russians as a harbor and was often called Romanzov, in honor of the chancellor of the empire and patron of the Rurik expedition led by Otto von Kotzebue. In 1830, Kotzebue anchored there and recorded it as “Hafen Bodega oder Port Romanzov.” In 1843, Captain Stephen Smith, a sea captain from Massachusetts who frequently sailed along the Pacific Coast, recognized a business opportunity in the seemingly unlimited timber growing along the shoreline. He built a steam-powered sawmill at the mouth of Salmon Creek. Smith married Manuela Torres, and they were later joined by her brother, Manuel Torres. Bodega Bay was the nearest natural harbor, and Smith shipped lumber to San Francisco using his vessel, the Fayaway. In 1844, Governor Manuel Micheltorena awarded Smith a Mexican land grant of 35,487 acres (14,360 hectares) called Rancho Bodega. The land grant represented the southern half of the Russian Fort Ross claim, which extended along the Pacific Coast from the Russian River in the north to Estero Americano in the south. Smith purchased the buildings on the land from John Sutter, who had claimed them under his purchase of Fort Ross from the Russians. In 1845, Governor Pío Pico granted Rancho Muniz, in the northern half of the former Russian claim, to Manuel Torres, Smith’s brother-in-law. In 1853, a settlement called Bodega Corners was established by George Robinson on the northern shore of the bay. It was later renamed Bodega Bay.

The Bodega Marine Laboratory is an off-campus research facility operated by the University of California, Davis. Scientists have studied the marine environment around Bodega Head since the 1920s, attracted by the diversity and abundance of sea life. Ongoing research addresses the impacts of climate change on the ocean and atmosphere, invasive species, oil spills, and other pollutants, energy-gathering systems, marine protected areas, and how changing ocean productivity affects salmon and other top food chain species. The lab opened in 1966 and has been managed by UC Davis since 1984. The facility’s main buildings house 65 laboratories and offices for resident and visiting scientists, students, and support staff. It also includes classrooms, lecture halls, public education spaces, libraries, computer facilities, residence halls, and conference rooms. Large public aquaria and displays provide marine education to visitors, while wet labs and seawater aquariums offer controlled environments for studying marine and estuarine organisms. Support buildings include research greenhouses and facilities for marine algal culture and endangered salmon research. A central service facility includes buildings for diving operations support and for housing small boats, vehicles, sampling gear, and equipment. Read more here and here. Explore more of Bodega Marine Laboratory and Bodega Bay here: