Algae beach party

Beachgoers in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, were met with a fuzzy, green blanket of ocean last week, as the water there exploded with algae.

You've heard before about dead zones. These are patches of coastal ocean where river runoff full of fertilizer chemicals have produced massive algae blooms. As the algae die, their decomposition reduces the oxygen level of the water to the point that many fish and other aquatic life can no longer live there.

This is what a dead zone looks like, just before the death.

It's worth noting, when I pulled this photo out of the Reuters files, I could see similar shots, taken on the same beach, in 2010, 2009, and 2008. This isn't a fluke. It's an endemic problem.

Image: REUTERS/China Daily China Daily Information Corp - CDIC

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie goes places and talks to people. Find out where she'll be speaking next.

MORE: algae • consequences • dead zone • Environment • farming • fertilizer • ocean • plants • Science

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David Wattenbarger

Can we scoop that stuff up and dump into methane digesters?
satn

It’s unfortunate that a bright green species of algae is causing these blooms. The headlines would be much more dire if it were one of the red or brown types.
- Moriarty
  
  You think so? Seems to me a neon green ocean is no less intuitively disturbing than a red or brown ocean.
  - satn
    
    Well most humans associate that green color with healthy grass, trees etc. It even looks like a lawn.
    
    Now if it was dark red or brown, that would look a lot less healthy (as it actually is) to most people.
Snig

Dead zones around the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)

Big deal with relatively little media attention.

Also, recently an algae bloom tried to eat Jim Inhofe, but spat him out. Too much crazy.
http://codebad.com/ Donny Viszneki

> While the algae aren’t toxic, big blooms can create oxygen-poor “dead
zones” in the water and leave an unpleasant odor on beaches.

*ahem*

> oxygen-poor “dead
zones”

> unpleasant odor
http://narrowstreetsla.blogspot.com David Yoon

…and people are swimming in it? Why?!
Brainspore

Why is everyone at that golf course standing in the sand trap?
Blaze Curry

The red dragon is hungry, and eats everything around it. There will NEVER be effective environmental laws in the prc. Because of the aforementioned fact.
ophmarketing

Man…when Chicago dyes the river green for St. Patrick’s Day, they could only HOPE for results like this.
http://www.facebook.com/thewilliamg William George

My Murdoch Block won’t let me look at the links.

(Funny how both are about endless streams of shit creating dead zones.)
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  That’s very odd. Because one of the links is to a BoingBoing article, and the other is to National Geographic. Neither of which, to my knowledge, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
  
  I think your Murdoch Block might be borked.
Guest

Tai ma fan!
GawainLavers

More than 30 dead wild boars have been found on the coast of north-western France this month amid suspicion of algae poisoning, officials say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14324094

In 2009 a horse-rider was rendered unconscious and his mount died after slipping on the algae, apparently after inhaling toxic gas released by the rotting seaweed.

I think I’ll skip the algae beach party.
euro-kiwi

more likely, though, is that somebody has been having some cute fun with Photoshop
speleothem

The algae were in the news during the ’08 Beijing Olympics when Qingdao was the venue for the Sailing Competition. Huge quantities had to be gathered up before the races could take place. I think they ended up composting the algae, and there was talk about making this into an industry of its own.
http://profiles.google.com/chippy2005 Tim Waters

It appears that most of the people on the beach are collecting the algae and putting it into white bags. They also have buckets.
What can it be used for? Fertilizer? Food?
Vermontist

I would have to be on fire before I went in to that algae covered water, and even then I might consider rolling in the sand as an alternative.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QMKFTR6IJY7XUUUSRSW4A4MIIM K

As it sucks up all the nitrates and other nutrients from the fertilizer runoff, I wonder if some locals collect it and reuse it as fertilizer. It’s great for gardens. I imagine it would take a massive effort to collect and transport large amounts.
http://profiles.google.com/jpersonna John Personna

It looks green and happy … are we sure this never happens naturally?

(Increased biomass is only bad if it leads to a crash.)