'Milky seas' detected from space

This is very cool....never heard of it before. Thought you folks would enjoy...

'Milky seas' detected from space

Mariners over the centuries have reported surreal, nocturnal displays of glowing sea surfaces stretching outwards to the horizon.

Little is known about these "milky seas" other than that they are probably caused by luminous bacteria.

But the first satellite detection of this strange phenomenon in the Indian Ocean may now aid future research.

The observation is described by a US team in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The glowing sea covered an area of 15,400 sq km and was observed over three consecutive nights, with the first night corroborated by a ship-based account.

...

The team was able to estimate of the number of bacteria that the observed area would have contained - an abnormally "giant" population.

"To put it into context, it's about 200 times more than the number of background, free-living bacteria that are spread over the continental shelf waters of all the oceans," said Dr Miller.

There have been 235 documented sightings of milky seas since 1915 - mainly concentrated in the north-western Indian Ocean and near Java, Indonesia.

[edit on 28-9-2005 by loam]

Holy crap that thing is HUGE! I would love to fly over it just to get a look. Nice Find!

sounds like storys about the green fog in the bermuda triangle,strange.
I wonder if thair is a conecshion.

They mysteries of the ocean are amazing!

The idea that that is all from bacteria blows my mind .

I just hit google looking for more info but came up with nothing. I would love to see other pictures if there are any.

mcb.harvard.edu...

Just pictures of the bacteria in question I believe.

I did a quick search for milky seas and found out precious little about this phenomenon. Is that because little is known ? Anyone have a clue how long they normally last, where they come from, etc.

I find awesome events in nature make me feel small and humble

The article says:

There have been 235 documented sightings of milky seas since 1915 - mainly concentrated in the north-western Indian Ocean and near Java, Indonesia.

So this is rare stuff....

I would have included that in the previous post, but SkepticOverlord thinks I'm too ubiquitous in my quoting...

Tryin' to play by the rules...

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I do tend to eventually learn...

This is very interesting as of today i had never even heard of these events in our Oceans, has there ever been any reported loss of life or ships in these milky sea events?

wonder what a submarine would find if it was down in one those events?

how far back in our history do milky sea events go?? years, hundreds of years or more even??
if its years could it be a Global Warming eefect??


[edit on 5-10-2005 by blobby]

Wow this is extremely interesting. So its bacteria! Do they have any plans to take samples to see what kind of bacteria it is? How long is it projected to be visible? I'm definitly going to keep an eye on this thread. Great find!

hey this happened north east of tasmania it was some sorta creature in the end

Could it be underwater vocanic activity?

Originally posted by fortean
Could it be underwater vocanic activity?

That wouldn't glow blueish white.

Darnit... the edit took my original post away....i'll have to work on this

another link

[edit on 6-11-2005 by mrwupy]

[edit on 6-11-2005 by mrwupy]

From Melvilles "Moby Dick:

"First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness -- as if from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, 'Sir, it was not so much the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirred me?'

Here's a couple more links:

milky seas

more milky seas

Wupy

Originally posted by fortean
Could it be underwater vocanic activity?

Bioluminescence is pretty well documented. Very neat stuff. I used to dream about living underground in caves lit by bio-luminous molds and algae - and now I think it probably does happen.

I can imagine swimming in this stuff - but I wonder if it's infectious? Like, should I bring a doctor into my dreams?

``

if youse looked at the image
[@www.science-frontiers.com/sf086/po86-12.gif]
which mrwumpy gave us a link to -> (milky seas)

you'ld see that all of the sightings & encounters of these 'milky seas'
were off the Horn Of Africa, Arabian Peninsula area....
sorta situated at the mouth of the Red Sea

which makes me imagine/consider that this phosphorescent bacteria is located
very near where the petroleum reserves are,
and maybe theres a connection?
maybe other oil rich waters should be investigated as to this milky-sea phenomena...

More links, from UCSB:

Milky Seas from Space

The Bioluminescence Web Page

Originally posted by amraks
hey this happened north east of tasmania it was some sorta creature in the end

I don't suppose there's a news link or anything for this?

I'd like to see on deck picts of the seas.
I'm sure theres some out there

[edit on 11/6/2005 by EvilBat]

I found this image at the Naval Research Laboratory's site. Their scientists are responsible for this discovery.

Fig. 1. Study areas (top) corresponding to unfiltered (A-C) and filtered (D-F) satellite imagery on the night of the SS Lima observations. (A and D) Jan. 25, 1995, 1836 GMT. (B and E) Jan. 26, 1995, 1804 GMT. (C and F) Jan. 27, 1995, 1725 GMT. Arrowheads in F indicate low signal-to-noise ratio artifacts. Shown in D are the ship track (dashed line) and positions at time of first sighting on the horizon (point a) and exit from the glowing waters (point b), based on details of the ship report.


And a link to the abstract of the research that was published: Detection of a bioluminescent milky sea from space Have to pay to read the full paper. As far as what exactly is a milky sea i found this paper.

Link

Lapota, D., Galt, C., Losee, J.R., Huddell, H.D., Orzech, J.K. & Nealson, K.H., 1988. Observations and measurements of planktonic bioluminescence in and around a milky sea. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 119, pp. 55-81.

A unique type of bioluminescence display, known as "milky sea", was observed on the ocean surface for 3 days. The colonizing luminous bacteria Vibrio harveyi is hypothesized to be the source of the luminescent "milky sea". The stimulable bioluminescence field was dominated by luminescent dinoflagellates, primarily Pyrocystis spp. and Protoperidinium spp. The zooplankton contribution to the overall light budget was estimated at < 50% for the samples examined and was dominated at times by euphausiid furcilia and Pleuromamma spp. copepods.

[edit on 6-11-2005 by Rren]