Alaska’s Mysterious Floating Blob Highlights Arctic Ocean Biodiversity

photo courtesy of North Slope Borough

photo courtesy of North Slope Borough

The mysterious mass floating through the Chuchki Sea, a frigid and shallow expanse of Arctic Ocean water flowing between Russia and Alaska’s northwest coast, has been identified as algae.  The floating “blob” caused great concern for local area residents and was the subject of reports by media outlets worldwide due to its massive size ( 12 miles long) and fibrous, hairy nature.   It is said the blob looked almost black when contrasted against nearby floating ice.  For days the world eagerly awaited tests being done on samples of the “blob”, as the possibility of the floating mass being biological seemed remote in these icy waters.  As it turns out, nothing could be farther from the truth.

According to the Census of Marine Life project(CoML), the Arctic ocean is “the most extreme ocean in regard to the seasonality of light and its year-round existing ice cover.  Arctic seas hold a multitude of unique life forms highly adapted in their life history, ecology and physiology to the extreme and seasonal conditions of this environment”.    The project studied three major realms of the Arctic ocean: the sea ice, water column and sea floor.  The results are truly awe-inspiring as the biodiversity and beautiful texture and color of the species found are counter-intuitive to what is perceived as an empty expanse of snow and ice.  The diagram below, from the Census of Marine Life project website, examines the diversity of the marine life in the arctic.

The CoML has discovered that ” the Arctic sea ice and its related biota are unique, and its year-round persistence has allowed the development of species not found anywhere else. The specialized ice-associated community within the sea ice is found in the tiny network of pores and channels, and at the ice-water interface. The organisms living within the sea ice are generally small compared to the other realms that were studied”. 

To learn more about the diverse nature of Arctic marine life and to visit the Census of Marine Life’s Arctic site, click here.   Below, is a video of the mysterious Alaskan “blob”.

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Posted by Tracey Smith on Jul 19 2009. Filed under Ocean Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.