Open Ocean Filthy Algal Bloom Congealed Around Plastic Trash

Thu, 10/12/2009 - 3:24am

On the way back from the purse sein fishing carnage, I encountered this.

Red algae feeding off trash. Huge underwater clouds of it.

Algae feeding off organic food waste mixed in with assorted plastic trash, probably chucked overboard by a passing ship.

The location was approximately LAT 04:07 NORTH / LONG 091:28 WEST, in the vicinity of the northern Galapagos Islands. This is more or less where the Equatorial Counter Current lies.

A 'hot zone' for fishing because this is exactly where the cool waters of the Northern Pacific meet the warm waters of the Tropical Pacific.

A perfect breeding ground for an algal bloom of red algae. There were few fish to be seen in the filthy underwater 'cloud', and it just felt like a wrong place to be. It felt like a dead zone.

After not seeing much floating plastic trash in the Eastern Pacific, all the way from the region of the Line Islands in Eastern Kiribati and the 'Isles Marquises' of French Polynesia to Costa Rican waters, it was a shock to suddenly run into so much of plastic filth all in one go. And believe me I was looking hard.

The 'top side' view. Long brown streaks of the stuff, hundreds of metres long. At first I was hesitant about getting into the goop, but after leaning over the edge of the boat to touch the algae, I realized that it wasn't irritating my skin. So I decided to take the plunge.

I was very careful not to swallow any of it, and I gave the deep inside of my ears a good clean later.

On further analysis of the sample collected, I decided to crack out my macro lens. I had bought it along for precisely this kind of thing.

If anyone can tell me the scientific name of these strange marine organisms, I would be most grateful.

From my limited experience, apart from this small corner of the Pacific, I would say that the South Pacific Gyre is generally cleaner than the North Pacific Gyre.

Plastics in the Pacific. A fascinating story to be continued.

ALEX HOFFORD : HONG KONG CHINA PANAMA PHOTOGRAPHER

What photography, and the

Submitted by hanbag (not verified) on Thu, 10/12/2009 - 7:12am.

What photography, and the thing that I liked the most is photographers creativity and originality.

Not sure this is algae

Submitted by Miriam Goldstein (not verified) on Thu, 10/12/2009 - 11:23pm.

Stumbled across your website via Twitter. Very cool photos! But actually, I don't think this is algae. Very few species of algae are visible to the naked eye (or the macro lens). These look like egg masses of some kind. Since all passively floating objects tend to accumulate at fronts, the debris probably just got stuck in the eggs as they floated together.

Of course, now the interesting question becomes: whose eggs?

Whose eggs?

Submitted by Alex on Fri, 11/12/2009 - 6:56pm.

Ha ha, thanks very much, Miriam, for your comments. Actually I was following your updates on the Seaplex Science blog during your recent trip to the North Pacific Gyre, or 'Trash Vortex'. Good work. I was there too, in 2006. Do you know Doug Woodring from Project Kaisei in Hong Kong? He's a friend of mine...

Anyway, re: the 'algae' that is not algae. I never thought I would ever be swimming through a fish egg soup in my life! I'm glad to know that it wasn't filth after all. Do think there is any way of cross-checking pictures from a fish egg database to find out which species it could have come from? Could it be that a shoal of fish spawned 'en masse', since the 'slick was hundreds of yards long? Much too big, I would have thought, to come from any single one fish. Although I must admit I know very little about how large cetaceans breed!

Another possibility

Submitted by Miriam Goldstein (not verified) on Tue, 15/12/2009 - 8:23pm.

Doug Woodring actually came out to sea with us! He is great - we loved having him on board.

After I posted my first comment, an algae expert suggested that it could be a type of red algae called Phaeocystis, but that she could not be sure without a sample. That algae does form large blooms, but still would be photosynthesizing & not eating plastic.

I'm not a fish expert, but I will pass your photos along. Some species of fish do have mass spawning events - it definitely wouldn't be one very fertile fish! However, again, I suspect it will be very hard to ID without seeing a sample under the microscope.

Thanks for the update, Miriam.

Submitted by Alex on Wed, 16/12/2009 - 12:38am.

I had a sample but it evaporated in the sun whilst I was busy doing other things. Oops.

Anyway, thanks for sending the pix along. Hopefully we will solve the mystery soon.

By the way, I have more pix available, all high resolution, if anyone needs them for further analysis.

Alex

No bad post, write more

Submitted by terbilac215 (not verified) on Thu, 11/02/2010 - 10:24am.

No bad post, write more

Open Ocean Filthy Algal Bloom Congealed Around Plastic Trash

What photography, and the

Not sure this is algae

Whose eggs?

Another possibility

Thanks for the update, Miriam.

No bad post, write more

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