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Thursday, November 3, 2022
Oregon foam
There was a pretty large swell and lots of foam washing ashore while we were up in Oregon last week. With an overcast sky, there were some amazing colors in the bubbles! Photographed near Cape Perpetua on 29-30 October 2022.
No worries, I've thought about this and have done a little reading about the topic. Although I don't have water samples from the times when I've observed the colored bubbles, over the years I have now seen a pattern where this foam is often associated with plankton blooms and larger wave/strong wind events (and no known sources of oil). I'm guessing that the phytoplankton is releasing some compounds that affects the "filminess" of the foam...and the thickness of that film (and perhaps some components of it) can create the conditions for very colorful bubbles. Although I don't have a great physics background, and I'd love to hear from people with more experience, my impression is that these colors are natural and not associated with pollution.
3 comments:
Sorry to rain on this beautiful bubble parade, but could those colors be from oil in the water?
Hi, Karen!
No worries, I've thought about this and have done a little reading about the topic. Although I don't have water samples from the times when I've observed the colored bubbles, over the years I have now seen a pattern where this foam is often associated with plankton blooms and larger wave/strong wind events (and no known sources of oil). I'm guessing that the phytoplankton is releasing some compounds that affects the "filminess" of the foam...and the thickness of that film (and perhaps some components of it) can create the conditions for very colorful bubbles. Although I don't have a great physics background, and I'd love to hear from people with more experience, my impression is that these colors are natural and not associated with pollution.
Thanks for asking!
Jackie
Very pretty!!! Fun photo
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