Researchers have been working to track and study floating sargassum, a prolific seaweed swamping Caribbean and West African shorelines, and causing environmental and economic harm.
Researchers have been working to track and study floating sargassum, a prolific seaweed swamping Caribbean and West African shorelines, and causing environmental and economic harm.
The stranded seaweed blocks fishing boats; threatens tourism; disrupts turtle nesting sites, reefs and mangroves, and releases toxic gas, which impacts human health and damages electrical equipment.
First reported by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century, floating mats of sargassum have long been present in the North Atlantic. However, since 2011, a floating population has established between West Africa and South America, and increased in size to form “the great Atlantic sargassum belt” – a 9,000km-long macroalgal bloom, visible from space and estimated to weigh 35 million tons.
The massive blooms of sargassum are thought to be down to nutrient pollution and warming seas, and vast quantities of the seaweed end up in landfill each year.
Read more at University of York
Photo Credit: hat3m via Pixabay
