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What Depths Does Kelp Grow At?

On our Catalina trip, we went to CELP camp located on Santa Catalina near Howland’s Landing. The trip’s general purpose was to take different types of scientific data that involved labs on both land and sea. The trip was a total of five days and four nights. We left the CELP camp at around noon, and departed from LAX at about 7:00 PM. Our specific question is what depth kelp grows at and why this might be. In order to do this, we are going to plot points on the My World GIS were we found kelp beds. Also, we are going to look at the average depth in which these kelp beds lie. Collecting the specific data required two different tasks. The first was to kayak around a kelp bed and record its points on a GPS. The second thing we did was lower a depth meter into the kelp bed to see how deep the kelp grows.
We found out that kelp grows at about 8-10 meters deep at Catalina. Kelp can grow up to 35-40 meters deep in other places but we did not find this in Catalina. It can’t grow below that because kelp needs light to grow. If it is too deep there is not enough sun and the kelp can’t grow because the particles in the water block the sun and also the kelp itself shades the bottom. Kelp can’t grow under any rocks or land. There has to be a straight path from the sun to the holdfast of the plant. Kelp needs to grow in rocky areas because rocks make good holdfast for kelp. Kelp usually is found in cold areas. In Catalina the water was about 58 degrees Fahrenheit.