Trinidad, West Indies. Sargassum covers the beach. Captions: A Tale of Two Beaches: Tompire Bay, NE Trinidad; By John Weber, William Neal & Jeanette Arkle. Photo courtesy of: © Jeanette Arkle.
Excerpts;
In retrospect, 2011 was just the first wave. That year, massive rafts of Sargassum—a brown seaweed that lives in the open ocean—washed up on beaches across the Caribbean, trapping sea turtles and filling the air with the stench of rotting eggs.
But a few years later “it came back worse,” Oxenford says. Now, the Caribbean is bracing for what could be the mother of all seaweed invasions, with satellite observations warning of record-setting Sargassum blooms and seaweed already swamping beaches. The Barbados government declared a national emergency on 7 June….
Read Full Article; Science Mag (06-11-2018)
The Eastern Caribbean Is Swamped by a Surge of Seaweed; Hakai Magazine (06-11-2018)
Massive rafts of floating sargassum are killing wildlife and preventing fishers from launching their boats…
Sargassum Watch Warns of Incoming Seaweed; (09-06-2016)
Sargassum beaching events in the Caribbean, West Africa, and other regions have received wide media attention, prompting action by regional governmental agencies and environmental groups seeking to understand this new phenomenon…
Plaguing Paradise; The Economist (09-02-2015)
Smelly piles of seaweed are ruining holidays. Globs of sargassum seaweed have landed on Caribbean beaches this year, forming piles that are sometimes metres deep…
Sargassum Inundates the Beaches of the Caribbean; Mission Blue, Sylvia Earle Alliance (10-31-2014)
Massive amounts of pelagic sargassum have ben washing up on Carribean beaches for the past few months. According to Mission Blue friend Martha Gilkes of Antigua, the seaweed drifts are getting as high as 3 to 4 feet on some beaches…
Mexico Deploys its Navy to Face its Latest Threat: Monster Seaweed, The Washington Post (10-29-2015)
Video: Algues Sargasses, Plage du Diamant- Martinique; DailyMotion Video (08-18-2015)
Sargassum is invading the beaches of Martinique island, French West Indies.
A Tale of Two Beaches: Tompire Bay, NE Trinidad; By John Weber, William Neal & Jeanette Arkle
Trinidad, West Indies. Giant wrack-line of Sargassum. Height here exceeded 2 m. The wall was definitely a barrier to nesting turtles. Captions: A Tale of Two Beaches: Tompire Bay, NE Trinidad; By John Weber, William Neal & Jeanette Arkle. Photo courtesy of: © Jeanette Arkle.
