Terrawatch: how tropical islands feed algal blooms

Scientists uncover secrets of 30-mile 'slow-cooked' cluster in South Pacific OceanIn early 2015 a spectacular boomerang-shaped algal bloom, measuring more than 30 miles (50km) wide, blossomed in the western tropical South Pacific Ocean.Scientists were instantly puzzled as to what was feeding the algae, given that the tropical Pacific is notoriously nutrient poor. Sometimes blooms like this are fed by currents that bring nutrient-rich water up from the deep, but ship measurements inside this bloom showed that was not the case here. Continue reading...