- PENSACOLA - A strange goo
washing ashore in the Florida Panhandle has state scientists baffled, but
they do not believe it is dangerous.
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- The stuff is foamy and slimy when it washes in from the
Gulf of Mexico, then dries in the sand as a dark crust.
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- The goo is the latest in a recent series of unusual happenings
in the gulf and adjacent waters, including a mysterious shark kill and
an influx of native and foreign jellyfish.
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- The material began coming ashore late last week and has
been reported as far east as Fort Walton Beach and west into Alabama.
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- "To spread that far makes me think it's a natural
occurrence, but it didn't react to any of the tests," said Florida
Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Sava Varazo. "The
end result is, we don't know."
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- DEP scientist have turned to the federal Environmental
Protection Agency's laboratory at Pensacola Beach for help in solving the
mystery.
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- In the meantime, they are urging people to stay away
from the stuff even though it does not appear to be toxic.
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- "There are no signs like fish kills or some other
public health problems, but use come common sense," Varazo said. "Don't
go out there and mix with this stuff until we've made some determination."
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- Scientists also remain puzzled by the deaths of about
200 sharks found in St. Andrew Bay at Panama City in October. Traces of
red tide, a toxic algae, were found in some carcasses, but researchers
doubt that was the cause because no other species were affected.
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- Red tide, however, was suspected in the deaths of eight
manatees and 15 sea turtles along the shore of Collier County a year ago
and of 115 dolphins in the Panhandle in late 1999 and early 2000.
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- The federal Minerals Management service is planning a
study to determine if the gulf's growing jellyfish population can be linked
to its offshore drilling rigs that provide breeding areas for the creatures,
which eat the eggs and larvae of other marine life.
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- A National Marine Fisheries Service survey showed the
population of native moon jellyfish is up. Alien jellyfish also have caused
problems.
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- Giant pink Caribbean jellyfish were reported late last
year from western Louisiana into the Florida Panhandle. The invaders are
cannibals and may help control the moon jellyfish population, but they
have stinging tentacles up to 70 feet long and can foul the nets of shrimpers.
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- They may have drifted on a current similar to one that
last May brought spotted Australian jellyfish into the gulf where they
jammed shrimp nets and consumed tons of smaller creatures.
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- http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/goo010213.html
2-13-1
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- It started as a foamy, milky-white slime with an orangish
tinge and it's now hardening to a dirty brown crust that peels away in
layers.
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- But, not to worry, environmental officials say that besides
being repulsive, the goo turning up on beaches at Florida's northern coast
is harmless.
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- "Our first concern is it was some kind of spill
but our tests show it isn't," says Barbara Ruth, environmental manager
at the Northwest office of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
"And we've had no reports of fish kills so we believe it isn't too
harmful."
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- Mashed Jellyfish? Egg Casings?
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- Harmless or not, the goo is unsightly and somewhat mysterious.
And it's pervasive. The slime is turning up on otherwise pristine beaches
from Fort Walton Beach to the Alabama border.
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- Ruth says one idea is thousands of tiny jellyfish, called
ctenophores, somehow flourished and were then whipped up into the strange,
foamy slime by rough tides. Another possibility is disintegrating casings
of eggs from some wildly reproducing species is creating the ooze. Dense
clusters of algae, similar to agar, a gelatinous substance used in laboratory
petri dishes, could also be a source.
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- Satellite data support all of these theories. After consulting
satellite images loaned from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
James Harvey at the Environmental Protection Agency's research lab in Florida's
Gulf Breeze, spotted definitive clusters of chlorophyll appearing nearby
in the Gulf of Mexico.
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- The patches of chlorophyl, a pigment present in oxygen-consuming
plants, suggest churning waters turned up nutrients from the ocean's bottom
in a phenomenon known as an upwelling.
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- Rich Organic Soup
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- "Think about coastal oceans as a productive system,
then nutrients brought up from the bottom is the fuel," says Harvey.
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- Harvey explains plant organisms such as phytoplankton
and algae feast on upwellings of "decaying stuff" from the ocean
bottom and flourish, causing the chlorophyll patches. Other creatures,
say jellyfish and egg-producing fish, then gobble up the plant organisms.
That flourishing mass of biology can then either drift out to sea or, if
the tides are right, wash to shore.
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- "People have the impression of the Gulf waters as
emerald green waters with pure white beaches and that's true," says
Harvey, "but it's also a rich organic soup where things are born and
dying all the time."
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- Ruth adds that springtime is arriving at the Florida
Panhandle and the warmer weather means "there are suddenly lots of
organisms doing all kinds of things."
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- As for the goo, Ruth suggests it may be tasty to some
animals and could in fact cause more good than harm.
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- "Who knows?" she says. "Some fish might
like it."
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