Numerical Study First to Reveal Origin of Motion of the Ocean in the Straits of Florida eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For centuries, pelagic
Sargassum, floating brown seaweed, have grown in low nutrient waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, supported by natural nutrient sources like excretions from fishes and invertebrates, upwelling and nitrogen fixation. Using a unique historical baseline from the 1980s and comparing it to samples collected since 2010, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and collaborators have discovered dramatic changes in the chemistry and composition of
Sargassum, transforming this vibrant living organism into a toxic “dead zone.”
Their findings, published in
, suggest that increased nitrogen availability from natural and anthropogenic sources, including sewage, is supporting blooms of
Over its broad distribution, the newly-formed Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt can be supported by nitrogen and phosphorus inputs from a variety of sources including discharges from the Congo, Amazon and Mississippi rivers, upwelling off the coast of Africa, vertical mixing, equatorial upwelling, atmospheric deposition from Saharan dust, and biomass burning of vegetation in central and South Africa,” Brian Lapointe, senior author on the paper and a research professor at FAU Harbor Branch, said in Monday s release.
Sargasso Sea
Sargassum is a constant presence in the Atlantic, so much so that a large swath of the North Atlantic is known as the Sargasso Sea. In past years, the weed has nagged fishermen from the Caribbean to Massachusetts, forcing them out of certain areas after they kept reeling in clumps of the stuff.