Posted on 08/07/2011 10:35:24 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A massive patch of bright orange material washed up on the Alaskan coast, and has scientists baffled.
The substance, which experts don't believe is man-made, could possibly be algae, but a kind no one has seen before.
"There doesn't appear to be any evidence of a release of oil or hazardous substances at this time, but we're continuing to investigate and trying to get lab determinations on what exactly the material is," Emanuel Hignutt, analytical chemistry manager for Alaska's Environmental Health Laboratory told CNN.
"What it is - an algal bloom, or something inorganic - that's what we're working to get some more information on," he said.
Samples of the mystery matter were collected in canning jars and sent to a lab in Anchorage for analysis.
The gooey substance was first reported last week in the Alaskan village of Kivalina. The light-weight material later appeared in places further inland, including on some roofs, thanks to strong winds.
The substance has since left the shore, but remains peppered along the land where it dried.
"At this point it's a mystery," Hignutt said.
The orange material was also found some two miles away at a pumping station on the Wulik River. There was also a report some 150 miles away that the Buckland River was not its normal color, and had an orange color to the water.
Since the substance was unknown, city officials cautioned residents to keep children away from the orange goo and for residents to boil their water before drinking it.
They werent fighting any forest fires nearby were they? I know they drop that Orange fire retardant.
When worked on the UA research vessel many years ago, I have seen zoe plankton upwelling’s in Alaska waters where the sea turns red and smells like a slaughter house.
It is a weird thing to see, the surface churns into a froth with splashing life as the zoe plankton eaters feed on it, Then other creatures right up the food chain feed on each other.
The goo must have been left by liberal media members still digging for Palin Family dirt.
Did they find any Deathclaw remains in the goo? Or bottlecaps?
I still think it’s a publicity stunt by the Kivalina Jaycees.
Check with the grocery stores at Kotzebue or Point Hope. See if anyone has made any massive purchases of Cheezy Poofs recently...
/johnny
That pigmentation doesn’t look like algae, too yellow and bright; if biological, it may contain some kind of fungus. A microscope picture should easily clarify that, but I guess that’s not the kind of tools everybody carry around there.
Some whales had a kegger and threw up?
Whale vomit can be very, very expensive. It’s usually greyish and comes in lumps, though.
Nancy Pelosi’s face deconstructed?
Good question. We’re always fighting forest fires in the summer in Alaska.
Google “red tide”. This has been going on for, oh, millions of years now. [roll eyes]
Eskimo Supermutants!
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