Makenna Colucci, an undergrad student, was recruited by Page to help with a project at the lab. Her meticulous and enthusiastic work in processing scrape samples of invertebrates and algae from the concrete casing and exposed pipeline caught the attention of Page. The findings from this project were critical for the FBI’s criminal investigation of a pipeline break. Colucci felt honored to be a part of such impactful work and worked alongside Page to preserve, analyze, and identify the samples. Due to confidentiality agreements, they couldn’t reveal their involvement in the investigation or the context of their work.
Working under pressure to ensure accurate findings, Colucci and Page concluded that the barnacles had likely been present for about eight months, indicating that the anchor drags had occurred in January of that year. This discovery aligned with information gathered from various sources, confirming that the anchor drags occurred during a severe storm. In January 2021, the Port of Los Angeles experienced a backlog of cargo ships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To avoid collisions during a storm, some of these ships dropped anchor, but the weather conditions led to anchors dragging for at least a couple of them.
