PORTLAND, Ore. — A brown gloppy goo has been taking over beaches along the Long Beach peninsula in Washington recently.
But don't worry, scientists say it's all natural and actually a good thing. It just happens to be a lot of a good thing.
Tiffany Boothe, who works at the Seaside Aquarium, was in Long Beach on Friday when she noticed the muddy looking mess.
"It looked a lot like an oil spill," she recalled.
But she knew it was not. She immediately recognized that it was a massive diatom bloom. One that was unusually thick.
"It was a little bit different in how concentrated it was," she said.
Anne Thompson, a research professor at Portland State University, studies phytoplankton. She agreed that these kinds of blooms do happen but added that we don't typically see them in such concentrations.
"These are tiny cells… we can’t normally see them with our naked eye, but they do the same work in oceans as trees do on land," Thompson said. "They make oxygen and take carbon from the atmosphere... these are the creatures that made Earth habitable for humans."
One scoop of ocean water could contain millions of the creatures. But normally we can't see them. So, why are they so thick off the Long Beach Coast right now?
Thompson said it's likely a combination of ocean temperatures, an abundance of food, and lack of predators.
"It's kind of the right recipe of conditions... for these cells to explode in terms of their abundance," she said.
And while she encourages people to check them out, she advises against getting too deep.
"The diatoms are generally very diverse and some of them can be toxic so that would be something to know more about before going swimming or surfing or something like that," she said. "But generally, I think it's a great opportunity to remind ourselves how much we depend on amazing creatures like these micro-organisms for the oxygen in our atmosphere."
There is also a smaller bloom off the coast of Seaside right now. Boothe said if any one has any questions about the bloom, folks at the aquarium are happy to provide information and answers.