CNN.com - Baffling black blob floating near Florida - March 27, 2002

Facinating bit of biology here. Algal blooms are a very missunderstood phenomina, dispite how dangerous they can be to fish and humans alike. Red Tide, the most famous of algal blooms kills thousands of fish in a single bloom, while another type produces the nearly psycotic behavior of sea birds who eat tainted fish (The Birds was based on real events, folks, I'm not shitting you). As for what this "black bloom" means - we hardly know enough to start guessing.

Another interesting angle to this is the fact that we would never have known how large this bloom was without satelite imaging. We monitor the entire surface of the earth now, and can observe such events in real time, where in the past we would have only had the reports of the scummy water and what not to document this. Ocean currents, cloud movements, and even the runnoff of rivers is as easily observed now as we observe the movements of ants across the driveway. One can only wonder at how complex yet elegant the planet is in its functions when seen from such a scale.