Alaskan blob mystery solved

Editor’s Note: Hey folks! Sorry for the hiatus! Green Air’s been getting busy with lots of new partners and contributors including the author of this piece, Kristin Arrigo. She’s the newest addition to the Green A-Team, a columnist for the Nashua Telegraph and we’re THRILLED to have her aboard. Enjoy!

The ‘blob’ or sometimes referred to as the ‘glob’ , or the ‘goo’, is 12 miles long of black filamentous, or ‘hairy’ plant life. Strongly resembling an oil spill, it was discovered in a far end of Alaska on July 16, 2009.

While the growth of algae is a natural occurrence, this particular strain is considered at this point, aside from trapping a few jellyfish, to be unique. The growth of algae is a response to the way light and nutrients combine in water. These conditions may include an area of low water level, creating a surface algae. Algae grows very quickly once the perfect conditions present themselves.

So what does it all mean? Well, that is yet to come, but it is possible that this algae form is nature’s response to global warming in a more positive way than we are used to concluding when we hear the phrase ‘ response to global warming’.

Blooming algae is one of the greatest cleaners of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Cold water, is nutrient rich, stimulating algae to bloom. The remote location of the origin of ‘the blob’ was in an area where the surface water is extremely cold. This cold, cold water which exists normally at the bottom of the ocean, now on the surface combining with sunlight, at the intensity it is at these days, and the right nutrients and voila, it’s the blob! Allowed to grow undisturbed, the algae is undeterred from it’s global mission.

However, certainly only blanket statements from scientists are currently available, because the analysis will take some time.

What we do know is best summed up by Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer (who) says, “It’s certainly biological. It’s definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter. It’s definitely, by the smell and the makeup of it, it’s some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism.”