South Georgia: Unspoilt Beauty @ Toby Tyrrell
The seas around South Georgia are prolific and, as Laura described, it is this that provides food to sustain the large populations of birds and seals along South Georgia’ s beaches. The reason that there is so much plankton in the water is that the normally scarce nutrient iron is supplied from the island and from the shallow seafloor around it, alleviating the otherwise pervasive scarcity and allowing the phytoplankton to proliferate. This has some consequences that make it a particularly interesting area for us to study.
Summer phytoplankton populations estimated from space. Dense populations are shown as yellows and reds. Massive blooms are apparent just downstream of South Georgia( at this point the general eastward flow of the ocean currents – shown with yellow arrows – is interrupted by a slight kink). Our planned route over the next few days is shown in green.
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