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Trevor,

I was not intending to insult you, but rather to answer the question
you poised a second time, after Jared & George's answer, and to point
out as best I could for the whole list that a biological explanation
was not unlikely.  Given that a hurricane was stirring the waters, it
does not appear to me you have to invoke a bloom to explain what you
saw, but rather a smaller population might suffice.  In addition, is
there a need for the organism(s) to be alive to phosphoresce and do
they need to be algae?

Fred

On Nov 12, 2003, at 8:21 AM, Trevor J. Kenchington wrote:

> Fred,
>
> Marine life, of some species, thrives at temperatures down to the
> freezing point of seawater. Temperature is therefore immaterial to the
> issue at hand. In any case, the Harbour is still fairly warm at the
> moment -- as I can confirm from personal exposure. However, algae
> (assuming that the thing in question was an alga) need sunlight. The
> species living in each area are adapted to use the seasonal cycles of
> sunlight available in that area (along with seasonal cycles in many
> other things), while light is abundant here in high summer but getting
> scarce by the autumnal equinox.
>
> So, for the third time: In my judgement (as a professional marine
> scientist), I find it a bit improbable that anything would be blooming
> here in late September in sufficient abundance to produce the
> appearance
> of continuous light (rather than individual sparks) that I saw. Not
> impossible but a bit improbable.
>
> I did not turn to this list for an education in marine biology. (Got
> that at university, starting nearly 30 years ago.) I did think that
> someone might be able to tell me whether there were possible
> physico-chemical explanations for what I saw. Jared has said that, at
> least where the water itself is concerned, there are not. If I get the
> chance, I'll ask the phytoplankton types at my wife's research
> institute
> whether they can suggest a species which might have produced the light.
>
>
> Trevor Kenchington
>
>
>
> Fred Hebard wrote:
>
>> Trevor,
>>
>> I believe marine fauna are fairly common near sea ice.  This implies
>> that flora are there also, at the base of the food chain.  Which I
>> always hear about the nutrient-rich arctic waters, where the nutrients
>> in questions are minerals for the flora.  So algae probably are
>> abundant in your harbor until it ices over.  I have no idea what ice
>> would do to the light intensity in the water underneath, but it might
>> knock it down enough to crash algal populations.  Now what it was that
>> was doing bioluminescence, I do not know.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Trevor J. Kenchington PhD                         Gadus@iStar.ca
> Gadus Associates,                                 Office(902) 889-9250
> R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour,                     Fax   (902) 889-9251
> Nova Scotia  B0J 2L0, CANADA                      Home  (902) 889-3555
>
>                     Science Serving the Fisheries
>                      http://home.istar.ca/~gadus
>

   

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