The Great Sargasso Sea

The Sargasso Sea is located in a gyre, or a system of rotating currents, in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean. The Sargasso Sea has no coastline, strangely enough. It is bordered on the west by the Gulf Stream, on the east by the North Atlantic current, and on the south by the North Atlantic Equatorial Current. The nature of the gyre currents causes all of the plant matter and human refuse to be deposited in the Sargasso Sea, but it’s somehow still known for its exceptionally clear blue waters.

Back in early 15th century, when Portuguese explorers were exploring the the Azores Islands, a chain of volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, they noticed that large amounts of seaweed were often present. This seaweed belongs to the genus Sargassum and the Sargasso Sea was actually named after it.

To be clear, Sargassum is not a plant. Seaweed is a type of algae, brown algae, to be more specific. Members of this genus are well known for their planktonic, or free floating nature. Some species are always free floating while others are rooted, but can live as floaters if uprooted by a storm or some other type of disturbance.

It was once thought that the Sargasso Sea was impassible because of the massive, floating mats of algae, but it turns out that ships were actually getting stuck there because of the calm winds of the doldrums. Can’t blame everything on the algae. Sargassum may have been used as a scapegoat by inept navigators, but it actually plays an important role in the lives of many migratory marine creatures like logger head turtles, European and American eels, and sargassum fish.

Something that may have seemed to be an inconvenience to early explorers plays a crucial role in an ocean ecosystem and affects the lives of many different organisms.

Shifting species paradigms.

Source

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 08 May 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargassum?oldformat=true>.