Phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Argentina

  • Credit

    Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Beneath the sunglint in roughly the center of the true-color MODIS image from November 30, 2001, a nearly 800-mile long phytoplankton bloom is occurring in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Argentina, South America. The bright blue and green swirls indicate the presence of microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. The bloom runs the length of the image-with some of the most spectacular features to the northeast of the Falkland Islands (bottom center).

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS

  • Visualization Date

    2001-11-30