January 30, 2015 - Phytoplankton blooms off Argentina

Phytoplankton blooms off Argentina

The brilliant colors of a summer phytoplankton bloom colored the waters off of Argentina in late January, 2015. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on January 21 as it passed over the region.

Ribbons of various shades of blues and greens float in the Argentine Sea from beyond the Peninsula Valdes in the north to the Falkland Islands in the south. These colorful swirls mark locations where the densely concentrated, microscopic plants are reproducing in huge numbers near the surface of the ocean. The different colors are most likely due to different species of phytoplankton. In this region the dominant species are dinoflagellates, coccolithophores and cyanophyceans.

Phytoplankton sit at the base of the marine food chain, so areas that support such widespread blooms also tend to support large and diverse populations of fish. This part of the South Atlantic Ocean is a productive fishery, with large harvests of hake, anchovy, squid, southern blue whiting, and sardine.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 1/21/2015
Resolutions: 1km (113.9 KB), 500m (383.6 KB), 250m (942.9 KB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC