SOLD OUT! Underwater Economics of the San Francisco Bay
Wed, Jun 24
|Spaulding Marine Center
Join us for an evening at the intersection of human and ecological design along the San Francisco Bay. Together, we’ll explore this liminal shoreline through the lenses of science, architecture, economics, and food.
Time & Location
Jun 24, 2026, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Spaulding Marine Center, 600 Gate 5 Rd, Sausalito, CA 94965, USA
About the event
The story of the San Francisco Bay can be told through its native Olympia oyster reefs and underwater eelgrass meadows. As the largest estuary on the West Coast, the Bay is shaped by the meeting of fresh and salt water—rivers tumbling toward the sea, colliding with tidal rhythms and the nutrient-rich upwellings of the Pacific. This convergence has long created one of the most fertile and dynamic ecosystems on the continent.
Oysters once contoured the Bay’s edges, forming vast reefs that created habitat, filtered water, and buffered storm surges. These small but powerful bivalves were largely wiped out during the Gold Rush. Today, a coalition of scientists, oyster growers, and nonprofits is working to bring them back—restoring not just a species, but a system, through the creation of living shorelines.
As oysters filter the water, feeding on naturally occurring algae, they clarify bays—allowing sunlight to reach eelgrass below. These submerged…