Mexico Deploys its Navy to Face its Latest Threat: Monster Seaweed

From Barbados to Belize, Cancun to Tulum, a viny brown seaweed known as sargassum has invaded the Caribbean basin this year. For Mexico, whose Caribbean coastline attracts more than 10 million visitors and generates $8 billion in tourism-related revenue a year, the arrival of sargassum became a cabinet-level crisis.

Sargassum Inundates the Beaches of the Caribbean

Massive amounts of pelagic sargassum have ben washing up on Carribean beaches for the past few months. According to Mission Blue friend Martha Gilkes of Antigua, the seaweed drifts are getting as high as 3 to 4 feet on some beaches.

Shift in Arabia Sea Plankton May Threaten Fisheries

The rapid rise of an unusual plankton in the Arabian Sea has been documented by researchers who say that it could be disastrous for the predator fish that sustain 120 million people living on the sea’s edge.

Green And Golden Seaweed Tides On The Rise, By Victor Smetacek & Adriana Zingone

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Green, brown and red seaweeds lying on the beach are part and parcel of life in many coastal regions. The amount of beached seaweed biomass started to increase along the shores of industrialized countries in the 1970s, and by the 1990s had become a nuisance along many beaches when mass-stranding events of macroalgae became known as green tides.