A massive seaweed bloom is smothering life from the Caribbean to West Africa
For eight years, thick mats of seaweed have smothered coral reefs, trapped sea turtles and brought economic instability to coastal communities as reddish-brown gobs of foul-smelling sargassum wash onto beaches along the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and tropical Atlantic. These phenomena are symptoms of a massive seaweed bloom scientists are calling the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt.