Invisible Oceans Founder's Collection: Invisible Oceans #83: Phytoplankton I

Within our planet's five major oceans, chain diatoms like these, are common, but every now and then, a plankton sample, and therefore the entire stretch of sea from which the sample was trawled, seems to be invaded by an oceanic current that brings an enormous cloud of these diatoms inshore, to the extent that many other life forms can be choked and killed off, such is the depletion of sufficient volumes of oxygenated water for survival. It is well documented that whole bays of relatively static water can become so toxic to other forms of life, because of these phytoplanktonic invasions, that the entire bay biota dies off, fish included. Sometimes it is chain diatoms like these that clog the area, and such dense populations of what is sometimes a single algal species can be seen from satellites. One such transient invasion occurred when we were on Lizard Island, to the extent that that evening's haul had virtually nothing else in it.

Image Quest Studio (1976)

Nikon F2 | Custom Optics | Kodachrome 64