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COASTAL UPWELLING


One of my first freelance science illustration projects, this cutaway diagram for Bay Nature magazine explains the physical process of coastal upwelling off Northern California.

Near Point Arena, winds blowing along the coast push surface waters southward. The Coriolis effect deflects that moving water offshore, allowing cold, nutrient-rich water from deeper in the ocean to rise toward the surface. Those nutrients fuel blooms of phytoplankton that support an extraordinarily productive marine food web—from zooplankton and fish to seabirds and humpback whales.

Cutaway illustration of coastal upwelling, with insets of phytoplankton and zooplankton. A map of Point Arena, California, is in the background. Illustration by Fiona Martin.
Cutaway illustration of coastal upwelling near Point Arena, California. Illustration by Fiona Martin.

I designed the illustration as a cutaway that connects an invisible oceanographic process with the ecosystem it supports above and below the surface. Arrows show the movement of wind and water, while marine life provides ecological context and a sense of scale.

The illustration’s style was influenced by a three-month internship I had recently completed with Electronic Publishing Services, Inc. in New York City, where I worked alongside illustrators producing high-end scientific artwork for earth science and biology textbooks. That experience helped shape my early approach to explanatory illustration: combining scientific accuracy with clear visual organization and detailed, naturalistic rendering.

Created digitally in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, the illustration was published with Kathleen M. Wong’s article, “A Moveable Feast: The Ups and Downs of Coastal Upwelling,” in the Summer 2006 issue of Bay Nature.

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