Uncovering Mysteries of the Sea

Reported July 2006

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Two scientists believe they've solved a mystery that's defied explanation for more than 400 years. The phenomenon known as milky seas, once thought to be folklore, may be real.

"They were completely surrounded by waters that appeared as a field of snow or clouds in all directions," says marine meteorologist Steve Miller, Ph.D., of the Naval Research Laboratory/Marine Meteorology Division in Monterey, California.

Miller is quoting the log of the S.S. Lima as it cruised off the coast of Somalia 11 years ago. There are hundreds of such reports since the seventeenth century. In Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," crew members talk about "sailing in a sea of milk."

Is it fact or fiction?

"The continuous nature of the light and the, sort of, the milky look of it both kind of indicate that it's coming from something that's really, really small and is producing a continuous glow," bioluminescence expert Steve Haddock, Ph.D., of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, tells Ivanhoe.

The milky seas are caused by bacteria that produce light just like fireflies light up at night, giving a signal.

"All the bacteria that are in that volume will start to glow," Haddock says.

To prove their point, Miller and Haddock searched satellite images to find pictures of the Indian Ocean when the S.S. Lima traveled it. They plotted the ship's course, and there it was on the satellite image...

"It was one of those chill-down-the-spine moments that you hope to get once or twice in your career," Miller tells Ivanhoe.

How many bacteria would it take to light up the seas? Four billion trillion.

Dr. Haddock says, "If you were going to cover the surface of the earth with a four-inch layer of sand and then count all the grains of sand in that layer, that's the same number as the number of bacteria in the milky sea."

...An unsolved mystery with a hypothesis that just may explain it. Proving once again, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

The milky sea phenomena seem to only last a few days. Miller and Haddock hope to find out about one in time to dispatch a science vessel to study it. The milky seas seem to occur primarily in the Indian Ocean.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Naval Research Laboratory: Marine Meteorology Division
Satellite Meteorological Applications Section
(831) 656-4721

American Society for Microbiology
Washington, D.C. 20036-2904
(202) 737-3600
http://www.asm.org

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