NASA: Russia - Kamchatka Surrounded by Blooms - 09.06.13
Posted by Ricardo Marcenaro | Posted in NASA: Russia - Kamchatka Surrounded by Blooms - 09.06.13 | Posted on 16:30
acquired May 23, 2013
download large image (4 MB, JPEG, 5000x3000)
The Kamchatka Peninsula of far
eastern Russian was surrounded by life in late May 2013—at least the
oceanic sort. Massive blooms of microscopic, plant-like organisms called
phytoplankton spread green over the nearby waters. Phytoplankton typically support an abundance of other fish and marine life.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua
satellite captured the natural-color imagery to make this composite
view on May 23, 2013. Looking toward the North Pole from the southern
end of the peninsula, blooms of chlorophyll-rich cells appear off both
the west coast—in the Sea of Okhotsk—and to the east in the North
Pacific Ocean.
Stretching nearly 1,250-kilometers (780 mile) from north to south, the peninsula is dotted with volcanoes,
some of which are faintly visible in the image above. (Click on the
large version for a better view.) Kamchatka lies along the Pacific “Ring
of Fire,” an area of extremely active volcanism and plate tectonic
earthquakes.
That volcanism probably played some part in these blooms. Several volcanoes—including Kizimen, Shiveluch, and Bezymianny—have
been spewing iron-rich ash and lava, both of which fall in the ocean.
Iron also runs off the land in rivers and gets churned up from the ocean
floor by currents and storms. Iron is a key nutrient for phytoplankton
growth, as it helps them process nitrate. The east side of the Peninsula
is also bathed in the cool, nutrient-rich Oyashio Current, which
originates in Arctic waters and flows south along the coast of Siberia
and Kamchatka toward Japan.
References
- Lam, P.J. and Bishop, J.K.B. (2008) The continental margin is a key source of iron to the HNLC North Pacific Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L07608.
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2008, March 19) Research News: How Iron Gets Into the North Pacific. Accessed May 31, 2013.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2013, January 31) Volcanic Fertilizer.
- NASA Ocean Color Web. Accessed May 31, 2013.
Image by Norman Kuring, NASA Ocean Color Group. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.
- Instrument:
- Aqua - MODIS
NASA: Russia - Kamchatka Surrounded by Blooms - 09.06.13
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