A 10 million-pound blob is riding ocean currents, heading for the tip of Florida. Here's what we know about where it came from—and whether you need to worry about it
The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt—a goopy mass of leafy, floating seaweed stretching across 5,000 miles—is meandering its way past Florida and through the Caribbean.
Historically, sargassum has been a natural part of the ocean ecosystem, but in the past decade that oasis has blossomed into a nuisance capable of causing serious damage—and a rotting, smelly one at that. Here's what we know about where it came from—and whether you need to worry about it. Volunteers and municipal workers collect sargassum in Puerto Morelos, a port town in Quintana Roo, Mexico, on August 8, 2018. The clumps of seaweed colored the water brown and gave off a fetid smell.
Sargassum is a golden-hued seaweed, a large macroalgae, that’s continuously whisked atop the ocean’s currents. Unlike other types of seaweed, such as the kelp that’s anchored to the shallow ocean floor, sargassum is adapted to life on the open sea and lives solely in floating patches. “To our best knowledge, 2011 was the first year that there was a big bloom of this stuff,” says Barnes. are often fueled by pollution, and sargassum is no different. When farmers spray fertilizers on land, they release chemicals laden with nutrients to help crops grow. When those fertilizers leak into rivers and make their way out to sea, they release the same plant-growing nutrients onto sea plants, unintentionally giving them a boost.
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