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Alaskan Blob Is an Algae Bloom
Bryan Gividen writes "Time.com is running a story on the previously unidentified blob floating off of the coast of Alaska. The article states that the blob is an algae bloom — far less sinister (or exciting) than any The Thing or The Blob comparison that was jokingly made. From the article: '"It's sort of like a swimming pool that hasn't been cleaned in a while." The blob, Konar said, is a microalgae made up of 'billions and billions of individuals.'"
Am I the only one who could not help but hear that quote in Carl Sagan's voice?
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
It already works as oxygen generator...
So, it is alive!
This guy's the limit!
Whose turn was it to chlorine the ocean?
For some reason I initially read the headline as "Alaksan Bob", and assumed it was going to be about Sarah Palin's replacement.
Mind you, she probably can see this blob from her house...
Love.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Till it dies off .. then we might get another dead zone.
When algal blooms die off, oxygen is used to decompose the algae which creates hypoxic conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
Ofcourse I didn't RTFA... maybe this isn't a harmfull kind.
If that's microalgae, I'd hate to see macroalgae.
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It would have been way funnier if it turned out to be whale semen.
Summer's here! The Algae's in bloom and love is in the air! Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
... how we can turn this thing into something useful. Gasoline, maybe?
Nope. Can't do that. Leave it alone.
This Study was performed by an independent panel of researchers from Miskatonic University, peer-reviewed by a group of scientists from Innsmouth, Massachussettes.
Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
algal blooms. One of the prime symptoms of anthropogenic warming is disproportionate warming at night and at the North and South Poles. We're a smart bunch here at Slashdot, right? (Right?) We can figure out what that means.
Like a previous commenter said, yes, when they die they'll take some of their incorporated carbon down to the sea floor. Along the way, microbes are going to be decomposing it. They use oxygen to do that. If there's enough algae (and this sounds like there is) what that means is that all the fish and everything else that needs oxygen dies in that whole zone. It's like the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.
This is major Not Good.
I think it's a bit much to say these do not happen at the poles. We simply haven't encountered one yet. Algae do live in cold water, the question's just why are there so many all of a sudden? This area of the ocean is pretty rich in marine life normally, though the water is cold. There's a ton of fishing and even a show about crabbing in the general area, and colder waters (especially where they mix with warm water) are incredibly rich in nutrients (though I don't know enough offhand to say this is one of those areas, it.. prroooobbably is, or is close to one).
Algal blooms in the gulf and off the west coast tend to be caused by runoff from agricultural waters rich in fertilizers. I doubt there's much of that so far north, but there may have been some nutrient-stirring or even -releasing during the recent earthquakes up there? That's a total stab in the dark. I'm not a scientist or even an amateur in this field, but I do know that shaking water can stir stuff up from the bottom.
though looking at wikipedia.. this has happened before, at least near this area. Down near the bottom there's a picture of a bloom from 1998 in the Bering Sea (the rich sea area I was talkin about) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algal_bloom
This might really be more a case of people unfamiliar with a phenomenon blowing it way out of proportion because they don't know that it's happened before. The original article did mention there was concern it was an oil spill, and that quite often there's investigations into strange things in the area that are thought to be oil spills but rarely turn out to actually be so... so at this point I'm thinking this has happened before, if maybe not quite on this scale, but it just wasn't picked up widely by news organizations so you and I never knew about it.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Till it dies off .. then we might get another dead zone.
When algal blooms die off, oxygen is used to decompose the algae which creates hypoxic conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)
Ofcourse I didn't RTFA... maybe this isn't a harmfull kind.
That's an excellent point - and I was going to visit this idea until I read your post. It would be very interesting to see a study on the local ecosystem, and if there are any issues with nutrient runoff nearby from local human population, logging, or agriculture (the usual suspects for nutrient loading and algal blooms). I found it dubious that a quote in the article seemed to indirectly point to global climate change as a cause (the quote was "...as a result of global change"). Seems like it's so easy to scapegoat that as the villain responsible for any malignant ecological change without the need for any, you know, real science. (It's also easier to get grants when a hypothesis or grant proposal's title suggests an agenda-based search for a causal link between phenomena X and global climate change)
The phenomena that most commonly leads to algal blooms, anoxic water columns, and ultimately a dead zone (or fish kill) is known as eutrophication. I spent my first years of undergrad (literally) knee deep in poo studying nutrient loading in water tables...ultimately leading to eutrophication. What a great wake-up call for me to get the hell out of the natural sciences. Poo stinks almost as much as academic bureaucracy and begging for grants! :)
-Turkey
News: Previously unidentified life-form identified.
First response: How can we turn this thing into something useful, like gasoline?
Moderation: +5 Interesting.
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