Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today we're going to go into the wettest of the woods,
Speaker 1: the saltiest of the woods. Today. The woods are salty,
Speaker 1: dark and deep. And we have promises to keep and
Speaker 1: miles to float before we sleep, because we're going to
Speaker 1: be looking at a sort of jungle in the ocean.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. The ocean. Uh, it knows quite a
Speaker 1: mix of environments, from rich coral reefs to desolate deep
Speaker 1: sea waste from sunlit shallows to hydrothermal vent heated depths.
Speaker 1: Marine organisms, of course, face numerous challenges, but the most
Speaker 1: basic demands boiled down to, you know, how not to end,
Speaker 1: how not to die, how to prolong. It's era to
Speaker 1: quote way for the barbarians, but this is especially true
Speaker 1: if you're small or your young organism. You're gonna need
Speaker 1: food and you're gonna need shelter. Uh. And there's always
Speaker 1: gonna be something trying to eat you. And for a
Speaker 1: number of organisms, this is provided by sargassum, a genus
Speaker 1: of brown seaweed of sometimes brown, sometimes described as brown
Speaker 1: and orange um as well. Discuss there a number of
Speaker 1: different species here, But UH sargassum thrives abundantly in the ocean.
Speaker 1: It floats free of the ocean floor. It provides a buoyant,
Speaker 1: free floating environment that travels on the tides and offers food, refuge,
Speaker 1: breeding grounds, nurseries, hunting grounds, et cetera for a wide
Speaker 1: variety of organisms. So in this episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss the sargassum organisms themselves, the environment that they offer,
Speaker 1: some of its benefactors, and also the problems posed by
Speaker 1: the so called Great Atlantic sargassum belt. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: last point is interesting because I will say, when you
Speaker 1: think of of seaweed, do you think of the macroalgay world,
Speaker 1: you don't usually think of it as something that is
Speaker 1: particularly economically devastating or or even economically all that significant.
Speaker 1: But but that that is not the case for sarcassum.
Speaker 1: Yeah as well. It's it's it's an interesting topic to
Speaker 1: explore because in its present form it kind of cuts
Speaker 1: both ways. It's both vitally important to UH to so
Speaker 1: many organisms and a number of organisms that are then
Speaker 1: important to us. You know various um, uh, you know
Speaker 1: marine species that we depend on, various fish and so forth.
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, uh, in an environment
Speaker 1: that is increasingly out of balance, Uh, it also poses
Speaker 1: a threat, and it can pose quite a nuisance. So
Speaker 1: we'll get into all that. So what got you thinking
Speaker 1: about sarcassum for today, Rob, Well, it's because tomorrow's episode
Speaker 1: of Weird howse Cinema will entail sargassum and casual mention
Speaker 1: of a few of the creatures. One creature in particular
Speaker 1: that calls at home. Um. Well, we'll try to save
Speaker 1: all of that for tomorrow's episode. But but yeah, that
Speaker 1: was probably the first place I heard of sargassum, the
Speaker 1: weed of deceit. I was wondering if we should announce
Speaker 1: the movie, but maybe we should just make everyone wait
Speaker 1: to find out they're going to be wondering. Wait, is
Speaker 1: it a Jaws clone where it's a big raft of
Speaker 1: seaweed instead of a shark? Is it like the Blair
Speaker 1: Witch Project, but instead of getting lost in the woods
Speaker 1: of Virginia or wherever it is, you get lost in
Speaker 1: the woods of the ocean of the Sargasso Sea. Well
Speaker 1: that the truth will just suddenly strike out at them
Speaker 1: and there'll be nothing they can do about it. Uh So,
Speaker 1: so tune in tomorrow if you wish for that. But
Speaker 1: but for this episode, we're going to focus on first
Speaker 1: on on sargassum, the the organism. So sargassum glimpsed in
Speaker 1: the ocean or on the beach, it might just look
Speaker 1: like a big heap of brown mess. But about closer look,
Speaker 1: you'll notice that it's composed of branches, leafy bits, and
Speaker 1: what looks like plump berries. But they're not berries, So
Speaker 1: don't don't pick them. Uh, I mean, I guess you
Speaker 1: could pick them. But what they are actually are neumaticists.
Speaker 1: These are air bubbles um. Uh. They are part of
Speaker 1: the organism held that you know, in in these little
Speaker 1: cysts that help it excel at floating around. Right. Because
Speaker 1: of course, there are different types of seaweed, and some
Speaker 1: types of seaweed spend their life, you know, submerged in
Speaker 1: the water, and they might be say, anchored down by
Speaker 1: a type of organ known as a hold fast that
Speaker 1: is somewhat analogous to like the root ball of a
Speaker 1: tree that holds it, except in the case of seaweed,
Speaker 1: it would hold clumps of seaweed to the ocean floor.
Speaker 1: Not entirely analogous. I mean for many reasons, one of
Speaker 1: which is that UH is that the seaweed that we're
Speaker 1: talking about today is technically not even a plant. It
Speaker 1: is a type of macroalgae, which will explain more about.
Speaker 1: But in the case of sargassum, Uh, there are types
Speaker 1: of sargassum that are free floating organisms that spend much
Speaker 1: or all of their I was just floating on top
Speaker 1: of the water to have good access to sunlight, of course,
Speaker 1: which they need in order to make their food to survive.
Speaker 1: But they've got to just sit there and float on
Speaker 1: the top. And they're actually not even anchored to the
Speaker 1: bottom at all. They just float out in the open ocean.
Speaker 1: And I do just want to stress again that the
Speaker 1: genus is sargassum, and there I believe about a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty species um all of sargassum. Uh. The hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty number, I got that from the Ocean Foundation,
Speaker 1: though curiously I saw some higher numbers out there as well.
Speaker 1: I don't know if those were accurate. I'm sticking with
Speaker 1: the one, right. So there are different kinds that you'll
Speaker 1: find especially in different parts of the oceans around the world. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we'll be talking about some key ones though, that
Speaker 1: are the most abundant or at least in the end
Speaker 1: of the part of the world that we're gonna be
Speaker 1: discussing here. So, as I mentioned, sargassum is a brown macroalgay,
Speaker 1: so it is different than plants. And how exactly is
Speaker 1: it different than plants? Yeah, I think this is also
Speaker 1: important to stress because if you don't think much about seaweed,
Speaker 1: you might just you know, you know, you might just assume, well, right,
Speaker 1: it's some sort of plant that grows in the water. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that you might be reasonable to make
Speaker 1: that assumption just based on its physical appearance. And certainly
Speaker 1: the word seaweed um, weeds are plants. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: seaweed is also used informally a lot of times to
Speaker 1: describe both the algae and some plant organisms. But the
Speaker 1: algae are protests, meaning they are uh eukaryotic organisms which
Speaker 1: are not animals, plants or fungi um. So land plants,
Speaker 1: for their part, they likely derived from fresh water algae
Speaker 1: about five hundred million years ago. And algae is of course,
Speaker 1: when we look at the just the root of the
Speaker 1: word um. They're synonymous with seaweed, as alga is the
Speaker 1: Latin for seaweed. Okay, so if you if you just
Speaker 1: think about algae like the most I would say, if
Speaker 1: I was to go on my own personal life experience,
Speaker 1: when I hear the word algae by itself, what I
Speaker 1: tend to think of is kind of green en pond scum,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of very like something floating on top
Speaker 1: of a stagnant freshwater body like a pond or a lake,
Speaker 1: that is made of tiny little fibers that just kind
Speaker 1: of clumped together, doesn't have any recognizable macro structures the
Speaker 1: way larger plants like like flowers or trees would. But
Speaker 1: that is not true of all kinds of algae. These
Speaker 1: macro algaes that we see in these types of seaweed,
Speaker 1: they have more complex structures that are more like the
Speaker 1: structures of land plants. So they might have something that
Speaker 1: is akin to the stalk of a land plant and
Speaker 1: something that is akin to the leaves. In these cases,
Speaker 1: they would be algal fronds. Yes, yeah, so yeah, again,
Speaker 1: they look very plant like. You can easily look at
Speaker 1: them and say, oh, they're they'll leaves, they're the berries.
Speaker 1: But uh, at any rate, again, a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: different species of sargassum. Uh, though we're generally gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about specific dominant species with in given regions. For instance,
Speaker 1: the two varieties found most often in the Caribbean are
Speaker 1: Sargassum Natan's and Sargassum fluettans um. I don't think it
Speaker 1: would be necessary to remember that, but just know that again,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're probably gonna refer to sargassum a lot,
Speaker 1: just generally, but we're gonna ultimately be dealing with specific
Speaker 1: species that are dominant within a given a region. So
Speaker 1: sargassum reproduces a sexually through fragmentation, a form of a
Speaker 1: sexual reproduction in which parents split into fragments and those
Speaker 1: fragments then become adults. And furthermore, the Caribbean sargasm species
Speaker 1: in particular, and some of these other varieties that are
Speaker 1: important are hollow pelagic. That means that they not only
Speaker 1: float freely on the ocean, but they also reproduce vegetatively
Speaker 1: on the high seas. So they're they're completely in international waters.
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're they're they're a monkey knife fight
Speaker 1: that the land has no control over. So yeah, but
Speaker 1: that would mean that they don't They can do their
Speaker 1: whole life cycle without like anchoring to the bottom at
Speaker 1: any point or returning to shore or anything like that. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's gonna that's gonna becoming important later on. It
Speaker 1: get it really gets Nultimately the idea of sargassum being
Speaker 1: the wheed of deceit, so it grows abundantly in the ocean,
Speaker 1: where it forms vast floating rafts, as it's sometimes called,
Speaker 1: though um I don't think these are rafts in the
Speaker 1: sense that you could, you know, be a shipwrecked sailor
Speaker 1: at sea and climb on top of it or hoist
Speaker 1: a sail on it, But essentially just big rafts, big
Speaker 1: floating chunks of of the sargassum, all tingled together, stretching
Speaker 1: in some cases for miles, and these form in areas
Speaker 1: of converging surface currents, and in doing so they create
Speaker 1: a vital environment, like re alluded to earlier. But on
Speaker 1: top of the environment, the organism itself provides food. According
Speaker 1: to the Ocean Foundation, sargassum contributes and estimated six of
Speaker 1: the total primary production in the upper one meter of
Speaker 1: the water column. Okay, so that would refer to like
Speaker 1: different different stages of the food chain. So you've got
Speaker 1: the primary producers that are familiar to us. These are
Speaker 1: generally photosynthesizing organisms, like like plants on land, you know,
Speaker 1: that absorb sunlight to power the chemical reactions that make
Speaker 1: their bodies. And then you've got the secondary, uh, characters
Speaker 1: on the food chain that eat the primary producers. You
Speaker 1: know that that eat plants to survive. The same thing
Speaker 1: is true in the ocean. So you've got these primary
Speaker 1: producers that are at least near the top of the
Speaker 1: water column are going to be basing their their energy
Speaker 1: cycle on sunlight to to produce these molecules that make
Speaker 1: up their body that that in turn are eaten by
Speaker 1: other organisms that are the sort of the secondary organisms
Speaker 1: in that food chain. Yeah, it's it's like you said
Speaker 1: at the very beginning, this is the forest that we're discussing.
Speaker 1: Like in a way, don't think of the ocean itself
Speaker 1: as the forest. Think of the think of the sargassum.
Speaker 1: These going to these rafts of sargassum as the forest.
Speaker 1: Because the ocean, as we've discussed on the show before,
Speaker 1: the ocean can be a wasteland, the ocean can be
Speaker 1: a desert and um and in that desert, the sargassum
Speaker 1: can be the oasis um. It serves as a place
Speaker 1: of refuge for various creatures as well as again breeding
Speaker 1: grounds nurseries. In fact, it's the primary nursery for a
Speaker 1: number of important to human to humans, especially fish species
Speaker 1: like the ma ma. And given all of this activity
Speaker 1: that's going on at the various creatures that call it home,
Speaker 1: sometimes exclusively uh, their home, it's also prime stalking zone
Speaker 1: for many marine predators. So both sargasm predators who live
Speaker 1: there and have evolved a thrive in its environment, but
Speaker 1: also general marine apex predators that are drawn in by
Speaker 1: the by by the riches there by the biodiversity. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see if a few other just sort of general
Speaker 1: um facts about sargassum. It can survive wide temperature and
Speaker 1: salinity variances, and after about a year, those new maticists
Speaker 1: that help it to remain buoyant, uh, they lose their
Speaker 1: buoyancy and bits of sargassum will then sync to the
Speaker 1: sea floor where it will actually end up providing carbon
Speaker 1: for various deep sea creatures. So it's not only an
Speaker 1: important energy source for the sunlit shallow regions of the sea,
Speaker 1: but for the dark depths as well. I guess, serving
Speaker 1: as kind of like that that nutrient rainfall that we've
Speaker 1: talked about before that rains upon the deep and indeed,
Speaker 1: when it washes up on the shore, uh, I guess
Speaker 1: for for the most part we're talking about it. If
Speaker 1: it's washing up in manageable quantities um, it can actually
Speaker 1: nourish beaches, it can prevent sand from blowing away. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when it washes up, it also serves as a
Speaker 1: food source for various coastal species um. And not only
Speaker 1: is it generally not harmful to humans, it's actually edible.
Speaker 1: More on that in a bit. UH. There are also
Speaker 1: possible biofuel and pharmaceutical possibilities for sargassum um. We'll get
Speaker 1: into some of the drawbacks later on, but but one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things here is that like the idea
Speaker 1: of just sargassum piling up on the beach again in
Speaker 1: manageable quality quant quantities does bring to mind that sort
Speaker 1: of contest, that disagreement at times over what constitutes the
Speaker 1: beach or what the beach should look like. You know,
Speaker 1: should there be anything on the beach other than um
Speaker 1: human strolling and enjoying their vacation. You know. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the some of the really beautiful beaches out there,
Speaker 1: a lot of times they are manicured. You know, things
Speaker 1: like seaweed are collected regularly in order to have that
Speaker 1: sort of Hollywood beach presented. Uh. And in many cases
Speaker 1: there's an argument to me, may then no debris would
Speaker 1: be on the beach naturally, and it in the right quantities,
Speaker 1: it can be important to keeping the sand from washing away,
Speaker 1: keeping the beach from eroding, etcetera. I can see the
Speaker 1: point of view that would say, I'm okay with the
Speaker 1: beach that has natural debris, but not unmanageable amounts of
Speaker 1: natural debris or artificial debris. I mean, you certainly you
Speaker 1: know you don't want too many beer cans. That's going
Speaker 1: to kind of ruin your beach experience. Yeah, nobody wants
Speaker 1: to step on a beer can on the beach, But likewise,
Speaker 1: nobody really wants to have to walk over a tin
Speaker 1: foot high mound of sargassum like dead, rotting seaweed. Right
Speaker 1: right now, Um, we're gonna be getting into the history
Speaker 1: of humanity's awareness and understanding of sargassum here and the
Speaker 1: first bit I want to share is that you know,
Speaker 1: certainly early sailors described sargassum mats, and one individual in particular,
Speaker 1: Christopher Columbus. Uh, this was in when abundant sargassum fooled
Speaker 1: Columbus into thinking he was approaching land. And I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything that really defined this for me. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you did, Joe, but I assume this is
Speaker 1: what the term the weed of Deceit refers to the
Speaker 1: idea that you might encounter sargassum mats out at sea,
Speaker 1: and you could make the same air that Columbus made
Speaker 1: and think, oh, look at all the seaweed. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: it's thick, it's everywhere. We must be really close to
Speaker 1: land at this point. Sure, I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: where the name comes from, the that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So on September Columbus Road, and this is of course
Speaker 1: translated quote, we have begun to see large patches of
Speaker 1: yellowish green weed which seems to have been torn away
Speaker 1: from some islander. Reef. I know better because I make
Speaker 1: the mainland to be farther on and then on September
Speaker 1: sevent I saw a great deal of weed today from
Speaker 1: rocks that lie to the west. I take this to
Speaker 1: mean we are near land. The weed resembles a grass,
Speaker 1: except that it has long stalks and shoots and is
Speaker 1: loaded with fruit like the like the mastic tree. Um, so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess on the on September six, it
Speaker 1: sounds like he was like, no, you can't fool me.
Speaker 1: We're not that close to land. But on September sevente
Speaker 1: he said, nope, we are close to land. Look at
Speaker 1: all this seaweed. I had to look up what the
Speaker 1: mastic tree is because I didn't know, but it's the
Speaker 1: but it's known as Pistachia lentiscus. Ah. Yeah, I looked
Speaker 1: up a picture of it as well, and I do
Speaker 1: see some some prominent little round fruits that you the
Speaker 1: little berries that I assume that's that's what he was
Speaker 1: comparing to the what what are actually neumaticists? Yea. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, the neumaticists are these little tiny berry
Speaker 1: shaped gas bladders that helped the the seaweed float. But
Speaker 1: in this case, yeah, it looks kind of like these
Speaker 1: berries in a tree that would have been familiar to Columbus.
Speaker 1: I think the looking at the mastic tree apparently is
Speaker 1: useful for its resin. So a special note is the
Speaker 1: Sargasso Sea. This is a truly vast patch of sargassum.
Speaker 1: According to the Ocean Foundation, the Sargasso Sea is sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as the Atlantic Golden Rainforest and the islands
Speaker 1: quote unquote uh in the Sargasso Sea can be acres across,
Speaker 1: while the regions they occupy can stretch for miles right now.
Speaker 1: The Sargasso Sea is interesting because it is the only
Speaker 1: real sea in the world that doesn't have any land boundaries.
Speaker 1: The Sargasso Sea is a sea within an ocean. It's
Speaker 1: uh this patch in the middle of the Northern Atlantic. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's just a large patch. If you were to look
Speaker 1: at the eastern coast of the United States, uh and
Speaker 1: you know in the Caribbean maybe with the bottom edge
Speaker 1: down around like Cuba and uh in Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 1: then going up along the the coast of North America
Speaker 1: up towards Newfoundland, and then you just extend out east
Speaker 1: from there. There's this big patch in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean, which is known as the Sargasso Sea.
Speaker 1: Now we should be clear that it is not like
Speaker 1: blanket covered in sargassum seaweed, but there are It is
Speaker 1: known for having large rafts of sargassum seaweed within it,
Speaker 1: and the Sargasso Sea is interesting in a number of ways.
Speaker 1: One thing about it is it's known for having UH,
Speaker 1: for being a place where ships can easily become be calmed,
Speaker 1: and this is a risk that people who are not
Speaker 1: very familiar with sea voyages might not think about very often.
Speaker 1: But back in the days of sailing, one thing that
Speaker 1: was really dangerous is if the winds die down and
Speaker 1: you can't say, you know, there's nothing to propel your
Speaker 1: ship in the direction where it needs to go. All
Speaker 1: throughout the the Atlantic around the Sargasso Sea, there tend
Speaker 1: to be these wind currents. You know they're there are
Speaker 1: winds that will blow you UH, that will blow you
Speaker 1: east to west, down from the from the coast of
Speaker 1: Africa down towards UH, towards the Caribbean, and towards the
Speaker 1: northern coast of South America. And then there are winds
Speaker 1: and currents in the ocean that lead up north along
Speaker 1: the east coast of North America. And then if you
Speaker 1: go up north from there, there are winds and currents
Speaker 1: that will lead you back towards the east from the west.
Speaker 1: So essentially you create this box in the middle of
Speaker 1: the North Atlantic that is surrounded by currents that go
Speaker 1: in a circle around it. And this isn't often known
Speaker 1: as the North Atlantic gyre. Now, anyone who's ever watched,
Speaker 1: you know, any number of sailing movies or TV shows,
Speaker 1: or any TV show that includes like a a voyage
Speaker 1: by sale across the ocean. This is a This is
Speaker 1: almost a standard bottle episode right here where where suddenly
Speaker 1: the ship uh is in a is in a region
Speaker 1: where there's just no no wind at all, nothing could
Speaker 1: propel them, and everybody just sets around and gets like
Speaker 1: superstitious and uh a little bit crazy until the wind
Speaker 1: picks back up and saves everybody right. And you can
Speaker 1: imagine like if you actually were traveling across the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and you didn't know what you were what you were
Speaker 1: going to see, or what was going to be out there.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'd heard some tales of sea monsters. Who knows,
Speaker 1: you get into an area where there is less wind
Speaker 1: than you're used to than when you traveled into the area.
Speaker 1: You are suddenly be calmed, it becomes hard to travel
Speaker 1: and you're just kind of stuck there in the water.
Speaker 1: And then you start seeing these weird rafts floating around
Speaker 1: in the middle of the ocean towards you. I can
Speaker 1: imagine that's pretty odd. Yeah, And in fact we maybe
Speaker 1: don't have to imagine, because there are some historical sources
Speaker 1: that that may well be referring to this. I guess
Speaker 1: it's debatable whether they're referring to this or something else.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to look at the question how long
Speaker 1: has the Sargasso Sea been written about? Uh. It gets
Speaker 1: its current name from Portuguese sailors. I believe of like
Speaker 1: you know, the the early modern period, or actually I
Speaker 1: think before that, from like the fifteenth century. But but
Speaker 1: I was looking around to see how far back written
Speaker 1: accounts of the Sargasso c go. And I found an interesting,
Speaker 1: possibly applicable bit of history in a book by the
Speaker 1: British archaeologist and Oxford professor Sir Barry Cunliffe. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the book is called on the Ocean, the Mediterranean and
Speaker 1: Atlantic from Prehistory to a d F hundred from Oxford
Speaker 1: University Press in and this is in a chapter where
Speaker 1: Cunliffe is writing about records of exploration west of the
Speaker 1: Pillars of Heracles. So the Pillars of Heracles today are
Speaker 1: understood to refer to the Strait of Gibraltar, that gap
Speaker 1: between between in Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, where you
Speaker 1: can just go through this narrow passage to get out
Speaker 1: of the Mediterranean Sea and into the broad Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker 1: And so he's writing about the exploration beyond this point,
Speaker 1: out to the west by the ancient cultures of North Africa,
Speaker 1: Europe and Central Asia. And for for most of these cultures,
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean Sea was of course their bread and butter.
Speaker 1: I mean, the sea, even the Mediterranean Sea has has
Speaker 1: plenty of dangers and mysteries to it. But sea voyages
Speaker 1: within this region where you know, we're well understood for
Speaker 1: for trade and and exploration and warfare and fishing and
Speaker 1: all that. But sea voyages west into the Atlantic Ocean
Speaker 1: or another story. And and so you get plenty of
Speaker 1: tales and say Greek thought and Greek mythology about islands
Speaker 1: that maybe lay out to the west of of the
Speaker 1: Pillars of Hercules, way out there in the ocean that
Speaker 1: that is mostly unexplored by your people. Most of the
Speaker 1: early explorers who passed west of Gibraltar did so in
Speaker 1: order to travel along the coast to the north or south,
Speaker 1: so this would be traveling up along the coast of
Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula uh to form these ports along places
Speaker 1: like Cadiz that became a Phoenician port, or south along
Speaker 1: the coast of Africa. The Phoenicians and the Greeks did
Speaker 1: this to various extents, but the vast and presumably mostly
Speaker 1: empty Atlantic Ocean was not not among everybody, but widely
Speaker 1: assumed in ancient times to be a place of mystery
Speaker 1: and danger, especially by Greek authors. And Kunlift gives the
Speaker 1: example of the ancient Greek poet Pindar, who was writing
Speaker 1: in the early fifth century b c. E UH and so,
Speaker 1: to quote from Kunliffe here describing the pillars of Heracles,
Speaker 1: situated at the western extremity of the known world, far
Speaker 1: from home, he advises, quote, what lies beyond cannot be
Speaker 1: trodden by the wise or the unwise. One cannot cross
Speaker 1: from Ghadeer towards the dark west, turn again the sails
Speaker 1: towards the dry land end of Europe. The dark West. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this vast, stormy ocean. You you don't know
Speaker 1: if you know you travel out on it, Like would
Speaker 1: would you even reach land if you kept sailing? I mean?
Speaker 1: It was not known, however, kind of rites that Phoenician
Speaker 1: sailors were more adventurous in general in pushing westward uh
Speaker 1: And about around the year six hundred b c E,
Speaker 1: a Phoenician expedition sponsored by the pharaoh Necho the second
Speaker 1: had been reported to have circumnavigated Africa. And though we
Speaker 1: don't have the original sources for the account that I'm
Speaker 1: about to describe, there are later Roman quotations of the
Speaker 1: accounts of Phoenician sailors possibly pushing further west into the
Speaker 1: Atlantic in exploration. And one of these notable sailors was
Speaker 1: a Carthaginian navigator named him Ilco that's h I M
Speaker 1: I l c O, who lived probably sometime in the
Speaker 1: fifth century b c E. The Carthaginians were an ancient
Speaker 1: civilization that was based along the coast of North Africa.
Speaker 1: I think their their capital was in modern day Tunisia.
Speaker 1: But who expanded too much of the ancient Mediterranean? And
Speaker 1: then here I'm going to read from Cunliffe as he
Speaker 1: introduces and quotes another ancient source for for knowledge about Himilco.
Speaker 1: So Himilco quote, whose report published long ago in the
Speaker 1: Secret Annals of the Carthaginians, is selectively quoted in a
Speaker 1: grossly pretentious poem compiled by our Roman administrator Rufus Festus
Speaker 1: Aviennas in the fourth century a d. A few lines
Speaker 1: of his Aura maritima will suffice to give the flavor.
Speaker 1: And then this quotes lines three seventy four. To the
Speaker 1: west of these pillars, Himilco reports that the swell is boundless,
Speaker 1: the sea extends widely, the salt water streaks. Fourth no
Speaker 1: one has approached these waters. No one has brought his
Speaker 1: keel into that sea, because the are no propelling breezes
Speaker 1: at sea, and no breath of Heaven's air aids the ship. Hence,
Speaker 1: because the mist cloaks the air with a kind of garment,
Speaker 1: a cloud always holds the swell and persists throughout the
Speaker 1: humid day. And so that's describing possibly some of the
Speaker 1: becalmed area of the North Atlantic, with like within the
Speaker 1: Gyre region that we talked about before, you know, surrounded
Speaker 1: by the currents, but is very often very still in
Speaker 1: that middle area that overlaps with the Sargasso Sea. But
Speaker 1: then Cunlift goes on to describe further how Aviennas quotes
Speaker 1: from Himilco to describe his voyage. Uh Cunlift writes elsewhere
Speaker 1: he talks of monsters of the deep and beasts who
Speaker 1: swim amid the slow and sluggish crawling ships, and again
Speaker 1: great fear of monsters stalks the deep. When the wind falls,
Speaker 1: the sluggish liquid of the lazy sea is at a
Speaker 1: stand still, while thick seaweed often tops the sea, and
Speaker 1: the ti it is hindered by the marshy rack. The
Speaker 1: marshy rack oh yeah um and Kunlaf also says Himilko
Speaker 1: was evidently not enamored of his encounter with the ocean.
Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps his vessel was drawn south into the dull
Speaker 1: drums and reach the Sargasso Sea, as some commentators have suggested,
Speaker 1: Or perhaps he reported in this dispiriting way simply to
Speaker 1: aggrandize his own achievement and to deter others. Another possibility
Speaker 1: is that his original report was embroidered by a Viennas. Uh,
Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly what he's describing here, and
Speaker 1: if what he's describing is real especially since we're only
Speaker 1: getting it quoted by a secondary source and we don't
Speaker 1: have the original source. But of course it is true.
Speaker 1: There's the danger of the dull drums, the calm part
Speaker 1: of the Atlantic, where you won't have winds to propel
Speaker 1: your your sales, so you can very well get trapped there.
Speaker 1: That could well overlap with large stretches of seaweed, the
Speaker 1: Sargassum seaweed that you would find in the Sargasso Sea.
Speaker 1: So one possible interpretation of what we're getting here is
Speaker 1: that this ancient Carthaginian sailor him Ilco actually sailed to
Speaker 1: the Sargasso Sea, survived, returned to Carthage eventually, and you know,
Speaker 1: lived to tell the tale. But again it's worth stressing
Speaker 1: that modern some modern scholars are are doubtful. It's hard
Speaker 1: to know for sure, but some details line up if
Speaker 1: they're accurate. You've got these reports about the marshy rack
Speaker 1: of seaweed coinciding with the doldrums. It it lines up
Speaker 1: in a kind of interesting way. And then finally, of course,
Speaker 1: the mention of sea monsters right the I wonder if
Speaker 1: it's possible to mistake the shadow of a huge floating
Speaker 1: raft of sargassum for a sea monster stalking the deep. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it strikes me as possible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and well, once you get into discussing sea monsters, of course,
Speaker 1: as we've we've explored in the show before, especially looking
Speaker 1: at the work of the check ven Douser. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: right on sea monsters. I believe he pointed out in
Speaker 1: his book that you know, at times sea monsters are
Speaker 1: a manifestation of uh, certainly of of second and third
Speaker 1: hand accounts of of actual organisms. Other times their products
Speaker 1: of the mind, sometimes their products of of economic or
Speaker 1: political forces. So they're a whole host of reasons, uh
Speaker 1: to to speak the word of the name of the
Speaker 1: sea monster. But that's certainly the yeah, the doldrums that
Speaker 1: seemed to be described here, and then the uh, the
Speaker 1: the rack, the muck, the seaweed here this does sound
Speaker 1: a lot like the descriptions modern descriptions of the sargasso
Speaker 1: c oh. And sorry, there's one thing I didn't clarify,
Speaker 1: but just to avoid confusion, because it's not a common word,
Speaker 1: I had to look this up. Rack here in this
Speaker 1: quotation is spelled with the W W R A C
Speaker 1: K and I was like, what is that referring to?
Speaker 1: Is that like referring to like a like a shipwreck,
Speaker 1: because rack sometimes is an alternate spelling of rack or wreckage.
Speaker 1: But also I looked it up and apparently it is
Speaker 1: also just a word sometimes used to refer to a
Speaker 1: massive seaweed like green vegetation. Could be oh, there is
Speaker 1: a rack with the W Yeah, okay, well sometimes that
Speaker 1: I wasn't familiar with the precise definition, but I totally
Speaker 1: understood it in the context of the sentence. It's like,
Speaker 1: look at this rack, there's no getting through it. So
Speaker 1: so certainly you can imagine that the rack would not
Speaker 1: be a great place to find yourself as a human sailor,
Speaker 1: certainly in in ancient times. But of course the Iraq
Speaker 1: is home to a great many organisms, as we've already
Speaker 1: alluded to here. So, uh, for one thing, you have
Speaker 1: you have various um micro and macro um epiphytes. These
Speaker 1: are organisms that grow on the surface of a plant
Speaker 1: and derived derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain,
Speaker 1: and water. Uh So you have that's those sorts of
Speaker 1: organisms growing there. You have fung gi, you have more
Speaker 1: than a hundred species of invertebrates that are known to
Speaker 1: uh to to live within the sargassum. Over a hundred
Speaker 1: species of fish, four species of turtle. Again, and it
Speaker 1: kind of spirals out because once you have a certain
Speaker 1: amount of of life uh fostered within the sargassum, it's
Speaker 1: going to attract other things as well, So you'll see
Speaker 1: things like sharks showing up, etcetera. So we are not
Speaker 1: going to attempt to cover everything that lives in the sargassum,
Speaker 1: but we are going to talk about some of the
Speaker 1: standouts because there are some really fun, really interesting, really
Speaker 1: weird organisms that call the rack home. And the first
Speaker 1: of which I want to talk about is the sargassum fish,
Speaker 1: also known as the sargassum frog fish. Now, is this
Speaker 1: the one that you lured me into this episode with,
Speaker 1: because the first thing that I became aware of when
Speaker 1: you were getting interested in sargassum was was that you
Speaker 1: came to me and you said, Joe, there is a
Speaker 1: fish with hands. Yes, yes, this would be uh, this
Speaker 1: would be the sargassum frog fish um and uh and
Speaker 1: and I'll and I'll explain what I mean by by hands.
Speaker 1: They're not quite hands, but they are enough like hands
Speaker 1: that you're committed to get excited um and uh and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably the most famous sargassum denizen. It's the species
Speaker 1: history of history o frog fish of the family uh
Speaker 1: at tananara day and it's the only species of its genus.
Speaker 1: So uh, we'll describe them here, but also feel free
Speaker 1: to look up images or video. I mean, there's nothing
Speaker 1: quite like seeing video of these these creatures. I think
Speaker 1: there's some wonderful national geographic footage, but also the Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema selection for tomorrow also will feature some actual
Speaker 1: footage of this creature right at the top. Um. So
Speaker 1: the uh, the sargassum fish grows to around twenty centimeters
Speaker 1: in length, so about seven point eight inches. And I
Speaker 1: should I guess I should say, first of all, they
Speaker 1: generally have this appearance that you'll find with other frog
Speaker 1: fish um and uh and and they're related to uh
Speaker 1: into the angler fish of the deep. Uh. So they
Speaker 1: have these upturned mouths, which kind of give them kind
Speaker 1: of this uh, this frowny face look, this kind of
Speaker 1: froggy appearance and uh and and so that that's the
Speaker 1: first thing to drive home about them. So they have
Speaker 1: that that kind of body that I think at number
Speaker 1: of you can can imagine, but they sometimes sort of
Speaker 1: think of it as the drawbridge jaw. Yes, yes, that's
Speaker 1: a good way of describing a drawbridge jaw. And of course,
Speaker 1: like like pretty much all fish, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: going to consume by by lunging and inhaling, you know,
Speaker 1: pulling their their prey rapidly into their mouth. Um their masters.
Speaker 1: These particular fish, though, uh, the sargassum fish are masters
Speaker 1: of camouflage, at least within the sargassum environment, because they've
Speaker 1: adapted to physically look like the sargassum, complete with fleshy
Speaker 1: appendages that look like weed. I've seen some of the
Speaker 1: some of the appendages have even been compared to organisms
Speaker 1: that live within the weed um. So they just they
Speaker 1: just they look like they're just a part of the environment.
Speaker 1: You'll see images or even footage sometimes of the sargassum
Speaker 1: fish hiding in the seaweed, and you really cannot pick
Speaker 1: them out with a human eye. I think at some
Speaker 1: point I watched a documentary or part of a documentary
Speaker 1: that had some of these in it, and it was
Speaker 1: one of those like you know, trick shots where they
Speaker 1: show you the shot and then it's like there are
Speaker 1: three sargassum fish in the shot, you can't see them
Speaker 1: at all, and then has to like circle them or
Speaker 1: zoom in on them or something. I think I've seen
Speaker 1: the same one. Yeah. Um. But of course it's not
Speaker 1: just their physical structure and initial coloration. The other cool
Speaker 1: thing about them is they can further adjust their coloration
Speaker 1: from dark browns and greens to light browns and greens
Speaker 1: to complete the illusion, to to fine tune it so
Speaker 1: that they blend in you know, seemingly completely um. And
Speaker 1: they can do this quite rapidly as well. This is
Speaker 1: important for the sargassum fish because of again it is
Speaker 1: a voracious hunter, but also it's the jungle baby, so
Speaker 1: you know they're they're also they also have to be
Speaker 1: on guard against other predators, so it also helps protect.
Speaker 1: Now they let's get to the hands, so if you will,
Speaker 1: uh so, theirs their pelvic fins uh, you know the
Speaker 1: fins up front. They have nine to eleven rays uh
Speaker 1: in them and they're stalked essentially forming what act like clause. Basically,
Speaker 1: they can use these things. Again, they look like claws,
Speaker 1: they look like fish clause, and they can use these
Speaker 1: to grip objects, and they use these to clamber over
Speaker 1: and through the seaweed. Okay, so they can use them
Speaker 1: to grip objects, not in the sense of like like
Speaker 1: our fingers, where you would manipulate objects freely, but they
Speaker 1: can grip things in the sense of like sort of
Speaker 1: pushing against surfaces. Right. Yeah, they're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to use an iPhone. They can't play the piano worth
Speaker 1: of dying. But but they can use these appendages. You
Speaker 1: have to sort of grip and push through things, which
Speaker 1: is gonna be vitally important when you're hanging out in
Speaker 1: the sargassum, like little gravoid spines. Yeah, so they're really cool.
Speaker 1: Definitely look up. They're beyond cool. They're a little creepy looking.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend checking them out. Um. So, So, obviously
Speaker 1: the adults live in the mats and their eggs are
Speaker 1: placed there as well, but the larvae developed in the
Speaker 1: water columns between fifty and six meters deep. Um. And
Speaker 1: you might think, well that, I guess the sargasum environment
Speaker 1: then is just no place for for kids, right um.
Speaker 1: And this is this is certainly the case, especially since
Speaker 1: the sargassum fish is more than happy to eat them
Speaker 1: as well, So they're in they're not only incredibly voracious,
Speaker 1: but their notorious cannibals. I was reading about some of
Speaker 1: the studies where they've they've caught sargassum fish and they've
Speaker 1: they've looked inside at their bellies and they'll find like
Speaker 1: multiple juveniles. You know, they'll find some juveniles and they
Speaker 1: just they'll just just gobble them up delicious. Yeah. So again,
Speaker 1: just a fabulous fish. Just it's everything about it is
Speaker 1: uh is both beautiful and frightening uh in just the
Speaker 1: right proportions. Now, not the only creature that that that
Speaker 1: lives there again, and they're not the only creature that
Speaker 1: that takes a sargassum as part of its uh you know,
Speaker 1: official or unofficial name. For instance, there's the sargassum pipe fish.
Speaker 1: This is a species of pipe fish that makes its
Speaker 1: home in the sargassum mats uh And like all pipe
Speaker 1: fish and seahorses, the male carries the egg. Um. They're
Speaker 1: just into these elongated um, you know, beautiful fish with
Speaker 1: that kind of signature uh seahorsey head now um. Just briefly,
Speaker 1: a couple of other organisms well, first, in general should
Speaker 1: say that that the Sargasso Sea in particular is the
Speaker 1: spawning site for various eels, uh, including threatened and endangered eels.
Speaker 1: But speaking of decapods, there is also worth our consideration
Speaker 1: the sargassum swimming crab or U. Portunists say, I uh,
Speaker 1: this is uh just one variety of crab you'll find
Speaker 1: in sargassum mats, but it's an impressive one and a
Speaker 1: species adapted to blend into the environment. They have an
Speaker 1: orange brown colorization that apparently matches up with the sargassum
Speaker 1: pretty well. And as the name implies, they're more adapted
Speaker 1: for swimming than walking. The fourth pair of legs are
Speaker 1: modified into paddle like structures. Now, crabs, of of course,
Speaker 1: are noted for walking sideways, so you might wonder how
Speaker 1: does it swim. Well, they tend to swim sideways as well, uh,
Speaker 1: and apparently they're quite fast. They depend on a mix
Speaker 1: of active and passive hunting, so they'll they'll actively chase
Speaker 1: after something against sideways uh to catch it, but they'll
Speaker 1: also fall back on that that sort of ambush hunting
Speaker 1: within the jungle of the sargassum. Yeah. Now, in addition
Speaker 1: to these organisms that spend all or most of their
Speaker 1: lives in the sargassum, there are also organisms that use
Speaker 1: sargassom as a sort of like a stepping stone during
Speaker 1: their migration patterns. One example that's often referenced would be
Speaker 1: young sea turtles. Yeah, and I've also heard that it's
Speaker 1: important to even like migratory birds species. Again, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's an oasis in the wastes, an oasis in the
Speaker 1: desert of the sea. Thank thank thank so. Now, earlier
Speaker 1: we we alluded to the sargassum being not not only
Speaker 1: this this bountiful environment, but also potentially a problem, a
Speaker 1: problem for humans and the sort of human likes and
Speaker 1: dislikes concerning beaches, but also just for the environment as
Speaker 1: a whole. As the Ocean Foundation points out, it's ecologically
Speaker 1: important the sargassum, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have
Speaker 1: some downsides, especially when you're dealing with large volumes. Right,
Speaker 1: And this is something that's become especially a problem within
Speaker 1: just the last decade or so. Actually, it can really
Speaker 1: be dated to a year in particular, from what from
Speaker 1: everything we've been reading for the year two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: starting around two thousand eleven, something started happening with sargassum
Speaker 1: in the Atlantic Ocean, where there was a sudden increase
Speaker 1: that has gone on in many years since then, of
Speaker 1: of sargassum inundations where beaches and shorelines along areas in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, along the coast of Florida, along places in
Speaker 1: the coast of the northern coast of South America would
Speaker 1: just be caked with sargassum, like they're just mounds and
Speaker 1: mounds of seaweed piling up to the point that it
Speaker 1: in some cases would make these shores unusable for what
Speaker 1: humans have been using them for, usually in the years beforehand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if if any of you out there are are snorkelers,
Speaker 1: or are you know, related to our friends with snorkeling enthusiasts,
Speaker 1: then you've you've probably heard about the blight of sargassum,
Speaker 1: about the disappointment of of, say, you know, reaching a
Speaker 1: popular snorkeling area and finding that there's just sargassum everywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. So in in particular, one of the things
Speaker 1: that the Ocean Foundation points out is huge rafts of
Speaker 1: it can actually smother other sea grasses and even coral reefs. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. Granted, coral reefs are facing uh a number
Speaker 1: of problems, um you know and are and uh and
Speaker 1: we've gone into that in past episodes. But but certainly
Speaker 1: this could disrupt your ability to even properly view them
Speaker 1: as a as a tourist in the ocean, as a
Speaker 1: as a snorkeler, um you know, out there trying to
Speaker 1: to observe this natural habitat. Uh. It can also this
Speaker 1: is interesting this this has brought up as well. Apparently
Speaker 1: sargassum can serve as a means of transport for invasive species.
Speaker 1: Though UM, I honestly wonder if this at all compares
Speaker 1: to human enabled invasive species transport. It seems like, um
Speaker 1: it almost wouldn't matter compared to what humans can and
Speaker 1: have done, um you know, importing species like the lion
Speaker 1: fish into regions that um that that are not balanced
Speaker 1: and off to uh to contain them. Well, yes, but
Speaker 1: I would also say that there I think there is
Speaker 1: at least a strong likelihood that human behavior is a
Speaker 1: major contributor to these these new build ups of sargassum. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll and we'll get into into more of that
Speaker 1: in just a second. Um, just a few more points
Speaker 1: here that the ocean foundation made uh sargassum of course,
Speaker 1: can prevent boats and fishermen from setting out to sea.
Speaker 1: It can also prevent sea turtles from making it to
Speaker 1: nest in these cases as well. So you know, again
Speaker 1: you have it massing up on the beach in particular,
Speaker 1: if it's um, you know, a certain amount of that
Speaker 1: is arguably good for the beach, but if you have
Speaker 1: too much of it, yeah, it's going to actually interfere
Speaker 1: potentially in a sea turtle's ability to come on shore
Speaker 1: lady eggs and then have the hatchlings be able to
Speaker 1: properly get back out to sea again in in an
Speaker 1: appropriate amount of time. And if it masses on the beach,
Speaker 1: the sargassum it, if it's not removed in time, it
Speaker 1: can produce hydrogen sulfide, which can have a major can
Speaker 1: have major detrimental effects on coastal ecosystems. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it can have all kinds of negative effects on the
Speaker 1: wildlife itself. I mean, one would be like if it
Speaker 1: doesn't reach the beach, if you're just talking about it
Speaker 1: still being in the water, big blooms of algal organisms
Speaker 1: in the water can have downstream effects when the blooms
Speaker 1: eventually die and then there's all of this dead, decomposing
Speaker 1: material in the water, and then the decomposition of that
Speaker 1: material ends up robbing the water of dissolved oxygen, which
Speaker 1: in turn leads to these big fish die offs and
Speaker 1: die offs of other organisms because there's not enough oxygen
Speaker 1: in the water for them to breathe. Yeah, and also
Speaker 1: all that decomposition in the water can promote harmful blooms
Speaker 1: of bacteria and other microbes. I guess the way to
Speaker 1: to to think of it is it's basically like spiraling
Speaker 1: imbalance in the ecosystem and uh and and it's its
Speaker 1: place in this uh this this this cascade of imbalance.
Speaker 1: Now to get kind of a I guess, sort of
Speaker 1: a bird's eye or I guess satellite view of things. UM.
Speaker 1: I found this pretty helpful. I was looking at a
Speaker 1: July twenty nineteen article from NASA Goddard. They utilize the
Speaker 1: satellite images to observe the Great Atlantic Sargassum belt. Uh
Speaker 1: So at this point, based on simulations, they confirmed that
Speaker 1: its shape was due to ocean currents and that it
Speaker 1: can grow large enough so as to blanket the surface
Speaker 1: of the Tropical Atlantic from the west coast of Africa
Speaker 1: to the Gulf of Mexico. Major blooms have occurred in
Speaker 1: every year between twenty eleven and again, this was a
Speaker 1: July articles, so that's as far up as it went
Speaker 1: at the time. UH with the exception of which this
Speaker 1: was apparently uh in this year was impacted by unusually
Speaker 1: low seed populations during the winter, but other wise eleven onward,
Speaker 1: it's been sargassum season. Prior to eleven, most of the
Speaker 1: free floating sargassum in the ocean was primarily found in
Speaker 1: patches around the Gulf of Mexico and the Sargasso Sea.
Speaker 1: But then something changed, something seemingly in the biochemistry the ocean. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, people were asking a lot of questions about
Speaker 1: climate change uh and and ultimately I guess the reality
Speaker 1: is is complicated, but basically yes, it's pointed out by
Speaker 1: a doctor Paula Bontempi of NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program,
Speaker 1: the ocean's biochemistry is changing due to a mix of
Speaker 1: natural and human forces, and it seems to be leading
Speaker 1: to an ecosystem shift with important implications for marine life
Speaker 1: and human life since we depend on many of the
Speaker 1: species in question and live in and in many of
Speaker 1: the environments that are impacted. UH. Climate change is certainly
Speaker 1: a key aspect of this, as it impacts precipitation and
Speaker 1: ocean circulation, but increased water temperatures specifically don't seem to
Speaker 1: be the cause. It's these other causes. But again, UH,
Speaker 1: climate change is very much part of the issue. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make it sound like it's not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you were. If you want to read more in
Speaker 1: depth about this research, there's a really good article in
Speaker 1: The Atlantic by Ed Young from July nineteen called hy
Speaker 1: waves of seaweed have been smothering Caribbean beaches. Again, this
Speaker 1: from July nineteen by Ed Young. Uh, that's worth looking up,
Speaker 1: and it gets into a lot of the difficulty and
Speaker 1: uncertainty and trying to figure out exactly what the underlying
Speaker 1: factors leading to this change that we first saw in
Speaker 1: the year two thousand eleven was establishing this this huge
Speaker 1: belt of sargassum that was not there previously. And and
Speaker 1: what we want to be very clear, this Atlantic sargassum
Speaker 1: belt is different from the sargassum in the Sargasso Sea.
Speaker 1: The Sargasso Sea is further north in the North Atlantic,
Speaker 1: off the east coast of of like the United States,
Speaker 1: whereas this would be something that stretches more between Brazil
Speaker 1: and Africa. In fact, one of the things that ed
Speaker 1: Young writes about in this article was the very idea
Speaker 1: of the satellite photos that you were talking about that
Speaker 1: one of the fortunate things for studying sargassum blooms on
Speaker 1: the large scale is that sargassum reflects more infrared light
Speaker 1: than the seawater around it, So when you look down
Speaker 1: with satellites, sargassum patches can appear as hot spots in
Speaker 1: the ocean that can be seen from space. Young sites, Uh,
Speaker 1: the researcher named Jim Gower of the Fisheries and Oceans
Speaker 1: Canada for for doing this satellite research. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: satellite photos found that the bloom really began in April
Speaker 1: of two thousand eleven, which correlates with you know these
Speaker 1: times when these pile ups on the beaches, the sargassum
Speaker 1: inundations really started becoming a problem that people noticed. But
Speaker 1: they started noticing the blooms off the coast of Brazil,
Speaker 1: and the satellite images from two thousand eleven, and then
Speaker 1: Young also points to research by someone named Ming Chi
Speaker 1: Wang from the University of South Florida who, along with
Speaker 1: her colleagues, they've basically established that, yeah, this bloom is
Speaker 1: just going to be an ongoing yearly thing. Now, uh
Speaker 1: that that it's coming and it's probably not going to stop. Though.
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things this article gets into is
Speaker 1: a delay between the proximate causes that are likely leading
Speaker 1: to the blooms and then when the blooms show up
Speaker 1: within you know, what we can see with our satellites
Speaker 1: or what's piling up on our beaches. Because a couple
Speaker 1: of the factors that have been identified as likely candidates
Speaker 1: leading to these blooms. One is um is water being
Speaker 1: discharged from the Amazon River, you know, coming out of
Speaker 1: South America. UM. And this water coming out of the
Speaker 1: Amazon River is probably being especially saturated with nutrients from
Speaker 1: agriculture that's happening all along the US on basin, and
Speaker 1: so this is like it's like fertilizer that is flooding
Speaker 1: into the ocean and then of course that is feeding
Speaker 1: blooms of of this macro algae. And then there are
Speaker 1: other factors they get into that are probably contributing, such
Speaker 1: as like what the different temperatures are this year. It's
Speaker 1: the same thing you were talking about that um that
Speaker 1: climate change doesn't seem to be the cause of it
Speaker 1: in the sense of increasing ocean temperatures lead to uh,
Speaker 1: lead to macro alogy blooms, because that doesn't appear to
Speaker 1: be the case, but downstream other effects of climate change
Speaker 1: are very likely contributing to this. It's just not the
Speaker 1: temperature of the water itself. Another factor that they're talking
Speaker 1: about is access to the seed populations of of seaweed.
Speaker 1: It's like, how many patches of seaweed are there leftover
Speaker 1: that survived the winter of the previous year and can
Speaker 1: act as a kind of seed for the regrowth of
Speaker 1: the seaweed every new season. Yeah, because I think it
Speaker 1: kind of brings back that point of the neumaticis having
Speaker 1: a like a year's lifespan, so there's going to be
Speaker 1: a certain amount of crossover as well here from one
Speaker 1: year to the next. UM. I was impressed one of
Speaker 1: the quotes that you pulled from from the Young article
Speaker 1: just about how many tons of seaweed we're talking about here? Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the estimate I think this would be referring to
Speaker 1: the year previous to when this article was written, So
Speaker 1: it was published in twenty nineteen, so I think this
Speaker 1: would be referring to the summer of eighteen during June,
Speaker 1: when the Sargassin Belt was at its most fruitful, it
Speaker 1: was estimated to contain twenty two million tons of seaweed.
Speaker 1: And then there's even a clarification later in the article
Speaker 1: that that estimate is probably low since the resolution of
Speaker 1: the satellite camera that's taking the infrared imagery to establish
Speaker 1: that number, it has like a minimum sort of pixel
Speaker 1: distance resolution, so it can only see patches that show
Speaker 1: up at a minimum resolution of something like a kilometer.
Speaker 1: I think it was it could be about that, uh,
Speaker 1: doing that just stuff memory, but I think that's what
Speaker 1: it was. And uh, And so like patches that are
Speaker 1: smaller than that, with which there are probably plenty, they're
Speaker 1: not even really showing up on the imaging. So that's
Speaker 1: a lot of seaweed. That's a lot of seaweed, folks,
Speaker 1: And that's a lot, and that's ending up on a
Speaker 1: lot of it's ending up on the shores eventually. But
Speaker 1: one thing that is worth stressing again is that while
Speaker 1: researchers have probably identified some very good candidates for the
Speaker 1: explanations of of these blooms and inundations of sargassum in
Speaker 1: the last decade or so. There's still some uncertainty. There's
Speaker 1: like stuff we don't know about what what could be
Speaker 1: leading to it, and what could be the limiting and
Speaker 1: contributing factors. Anyway, that the article by ed Young is
Speaker 1: a really good read. You should look it up. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I recommend that one. Now. You know, in the past,
Speaker 1: I think it's been brought up when we're dealing with
Speaker 1: invasive species or species that are out of balance, one
Speaker 1: of the best things that you can do is develop
Speaker 1: an appetite for that species. Uh, in human beings. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think anybody's making an argument that
Speaker 1: that could um make a difference with the sargassum. But
Speaker 1: it is again worth noting that sargassum is something that
Speaker 1: humans can eat. Uh. We we mentioned that already, And
Speaker 1: I found a wonderful blog titled Eat the Weeds with
Speaker 1: Green Dean Um. So his name is Dean, but he's
Speaker 1: green Dean, get it and the blogs The blog is
Speaker 1: titled Sargassum Sea vegetable, and in this post, Green Dean
Speaker 1: points to a few different culinary traditions that have recipes
Speaker 1: for sargassum uh, though he points out that given the
Speaker 1: different species, basically it's sargassum is going to quote very
Speaker 1: in taste and texture, so there is no one way
Speaker 1: to cook your local species uh. He says that some
Speaker 1: amount of experimentation is going to be required, but basically
Speaker 1: he goes through different cuisines. In this post, points out
Speaker 1: that sometimes it's consumed fresh, other time it's cooked, saying
Speaker 1: coconut milk or vinegar or lemon juice. Other times it's
Speaker 1: smoke dried, or it's boiled. Sometimes it's even sweetened and
Speaker 1: put into steam buns. Sometimes it's cooked with fish. Basically,
Speaker 1: they're just numerous ways to approach it, but it's it's
Speaker 1: worth checking out the link. I recommend it. It said
Speaker 1: eat the weeds dot com. You'll find a post on
Speaker 1: the sargasm sea vegetable um. I'm not sure I've ever
Speaker 1: had sargassum in a dish. Maybe I have and I
Speaker 1: just wasn't alert to it, But now I feel like
Speaker 1: I really, I really want to have it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I have either. I mean, I've had a
Speaker 1: number of seaweed salads, but I don't know what species
Speaker 1: were in them. Yeah, well, I know some basic things.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know like combo, and combo of course,
Speaker 1: is a seaweed based food additive that is an amazing
Speaker 1: source of umami flavor. It's it's it's almost like raw
Speaker 1: msg it's it's good stuff um but but yeah, other
Speaker 1: than that, I don't know. I mean, I've had I've
Speaker 1: had like various seaweed salads at Japanese restaurants that have
Speaker 1: had different types of seaweeds, some that looked kind of
Speaker 1: like orange brown, like like some species of sargassum do
Speaker 1: So maybe I have I don't know. Huh, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I've I've only I know of at least one time,
Speaker 1: had like a sampler of seaweed salads from the Japanese restaurant.
Speaker 1: But in those cases, I think they were all still
Speaker 1: rather green. They didn't have um any kind of darker coloration.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I'm gonna look for it now
Speaker 1: now it is on it is it is something I
Speaker 1: want to specifically try out, knowing that it is sargassum.
Speaker 1: I just looked it up to make sure I I
Speaker 1: thought that combu was not sargassum, and it is not.
Speaker 1: Combu is a type of kelp. Well, obviously we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from everyone out there about this topic in general,
Speaker 1: but but specifically on this question of the cooking and
Speaker 1: the consumption of sargassum. If you've, if you've, you definitely
Speaker 1: know you've had it, and you've had in a particular
Speaker 1: way that was yummy or or or or not yummy.
Speaker 1: Let us know we would love to hear from you,
Speaker 1: and likewise, just in you know, in general, any feedback
Speaker 1: about about the various organisms we've discussed here surrounding sargassum
Speaker 1: or uh sargassum, seaweed itself. Perhaps you're a snorkeler and
Speaker 1: have your you know, two cents you want to throw
Speaker 1: in right in, we'd like to hear from you. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to hear other episodes
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find us
Speaker 1: in the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed and
Speaker 1: you know where to find that, just wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 1: Um subscribe if you can rate us, if the platform
Speaker 1: allows you to um, you know it gives us I
Speaker 1: guess a good ratings what we're asking for, you know
Speaker 1: that supposedly helps us out, but in general we're just
Speaker 1: thankful if you're if you're listening to the show, and
Speaker 1: uh you know, right in, let us know what you
Speaker 1: like about the show, what what you would like to
Speaker 1: hear from us in the future, what other topics you
Speaker 1: would like us to consider. Yes, absolutely, uh so, I
Speaker 1: guess we're closing out here, so huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us as as
Speaker 1: Rob just asked there, to let us know feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any to suggest a topic for a
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