A 5,000-mile-wide mass of seaweed is headed for Florida. Is Pensacola Beach at risk?
A monstrous 5,000-mile-wide mass of macroalgae called sargassum is making its way to Florida, but where it ultimately ends up is up still isn't cle...
A monstrous 5,000-mile-wide mass of macroalgae called sargassum is making its way to Florida, but where it ultimately ends up is up still isn't clear. Sargassum is a genus of brown macroalgae or seaweed that is commonly found throughout the world, but abundantly so in a patch of the Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea. The massive drift of seaweed isn't new. Christopher Columbus wrote about sargassum during his voyage to North America. However, in 2011, researchers began to observe explosive growth in the belt, known as the great Sargassum belt, thought to be sparked by excess fertilizer, raw sewage and soil runoff.