Mystery foam engulfs seaside town in northwest England

theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com...
Mystery foam engulfs seaside town in northwest England

December 30, 2011 – UNITED KINGDOM – A thick white blanket settled gently on the seaside town of Cleveleys near Blackpool on Wednesday, but this was no seasonal dusting of snow from above. The Environment Agency dispatched officers to Princess Promenade to gather evidence as gobs of foam blew in from the sea and smothered streets, cars and houses. The foam is whipped up by strong winds once or twice a year along the town’s seafront and vanishes soon after, a spokeswoman for the agency told the Guardian. Lab tests on samples collected in earlier years have found no signs of pollution. Decomposing algal matter is the prime suspect for the mysterious lather. “It appears to be naturally occurring. When the tides and winds combine to churn dead algal matter up from the bottom of the sea, it produces this foam, which is quite dramatic,” the spokeswoman said. Officers visited Cleveleys on Wednesday and again on Thursday to collect more specimens to analyze. The results of the tests are expected to confirm the foam is natural and not caused by detergent in seawater or other pollution. By studying the foam, the agency hopes to learn how and why it forms and so predict when the froth will return. “If we can understand what conditions cause it, that will help us predict it and help local authorities involved in the cleanup operations,” the spokeswoman said. -Guardian

I'm sure the test will prove that this is a natural occuring event, but it's wild to look at the picture and see just how much of the foam there is.........Amazing

I see something similar to this at many dams

Mother Nature continually amazes me

Blackpool is where I was born and raised!

I've never seen this before, or even heard about it, which is weird. It's certainly not been happening like this for a long time. I've seen small amounts of foam on the sea, but nothing like this.

Its really really bizarre! this has happened in Dover a couple of times in the past ten years but nothing as big as that!

Wow its a really strange phenomena

Lol looks like a giant has spilt some cappuchino

For years I have been wondering about the origin of the foam you can often find on the beach during the summer. I already figured out it had nothing to do with soap. It's supposed to be caused by the decaying remains of microscopic organisms in the sea. As a microscopist, I immediately became curious as to what kind of micro-organisms.

Every spring the ocean has sudden bursts of life. In the North Sea, my nearest source for marine plankton, the phytoplankton bloom starts at the end of March. After a couple of weeks tiny algae like diatoms occur in such numbers that the water becomes yellow-brown. Although diatoms are the most obvious part of the phytoplankton, (since they are such spectacular subjects for the microscopist it is impossible to neglect them), there are some other microscopic life forms that add to their numbers. One such creature is Phaeocystis. Most of my microscopy friends find this organism extremely annoying since they form such large colonies that they clog up plankton nets.

This spring a large part of the phytoplankton bloom consisted of Phaeocystis. After the annual plankton catching excursion of our Dutch Microscopy club, I thought it would be nice to make a picture of Phaeocystis and see if I could find more information about it. The only thing I knew was its name since it was mentioned so many times, in combination with a good deal of curses. But a name is always a good start for a search for information.

I thought I might find something in a very useful book called 'Algae, an introduction to phycology'. It contains an enormous amount of information and indeed there was enough information about Phaeocystis. To my surprise, Phaeocystis happened to be the cause of the foam on the sea shore.

www.microscopy-uk.org.uk..." target="_blank" class="postlink">More Info At This Link

reply to post by isyeye

Removed vulgar comment

BEWARE THE BLOB!

Cool but strange and gross oh and Natural lol!

If this is supposed to be caused by a microbial resurgence in march why is it happening now? Is the north sea unusually warm for this time of year?

I found another news report about it, and there are several more that I'll try to link.

I did find it a little odd that they mention in the article that the foam is oily.

www.mirror.co.uk...

IT looks like a carwash gone out of control – and the truth really has got locals in a lather.

Drivers and walkers heading along the promenade at a popular Lancashire tourist spot were swamped by thick, dirty foam yesterday.

The oily bubbles were blown ashore after 90mph winds battered the resort of Cleveleys, near Blackpool.

In places the freak foam was almost 3ft deep, trapping residents in their homes and stranding drivers.

Resident Gorden Stanley said: “The situation with the foam is horrendous, normally it happens once every few years but it has been like this three times this year.

"It is oil based so it is terrible for your car and stains your clothes and windows, people don’t like to go out of the house in it.

“It’s not just the promenade, it gets blown inland so bungalows at the back of my house are totally covered too. If this is detergent in the water caused by industry or by shipping, it needs to be investigated, it shouldn’t be happening as often as this.”

Last night the Environment Agency was probing the foam to check for polluting material. A spokesman said: “We have taken samples of the foam as obviously if this is caused by any kind of polluting material, we need to know about it.

“Early samples are not showing any trace of detergent so we think it could be the combination of decomposing algal matter churned with the tide and the westerly wind which is causing the foam.

“We know it happens occasionally and can disappear again quite quickly so we will be looking further into what triggers it.”

Someone has posted a video on youtube.com about this foam



That is alot of foam. This may just be a natural occurance, but it is still a wonder.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

So they just continue to spin 'everything is normal here' stance and move on? OK.

I have seen this in years past in the oceans off the California coast however it has never been quite so thick that the winds blew it on shore.

Now the interesting thing to me is that in Huntington Beach where I hail from they always told surfers and swimmers to stay clear of the ocean when this thick foam emerges as it is toxic.

That picture in the Op is pretty mind blowing.

Stay safe and use your own intuition as your true guide.

Edit to say that I think I recall discussing the toxic sludge/foam with other ATSers about 08, off the California coast.

reply to post by isyeye

they mention in the article that the foam is oily

has it been tested for corexit?

lol wouldn't it be ironic if the tests came out positive?

I found another video on the foam. The amount of it against the seawall in amazing.
I don't think I would be attempting to drive thru it if I were these people.

Here is a link that may be incorporated into peoples idea of how safe this has the potential of being. Like I said before really trust your own best judgements when it comes to ecological matters which are not known factors.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

And here is another thread considering the effects of the Japan crisis which we still do not have answers to in the long term effects for all of the oceans.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

And possibly one of the most important threads to take a look at was one of those that fell off the bottom of the page shortly after it was authored, but seems to have close ties to this thread just the same. I realize that people were just spunout on all of the dangerous disasters happening worldwide to Mother ocean at this time and perhaps that was why this thread was over looked, but read it, look at the pictures and see for yourself it it connects to this new event happening thousands of miles away on another part of the globe.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger


Right on, I was thinking the same thing but after every thing we have learned about the BP spill it is most certain that they will not , will not test for correxit from either China spill or Gulfcoast.

Originally posted by DerepentLEstranger
reply to post by isyeye

 

they mention in the article that the foam is oily

has it been tested for corexit?

lol wouldn't it be ironic if the tests came out positive?

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Corexit was found,
but do you think they'll actually test for it?
I doubt it......
What do you think that would mean for the oil industry if that was found to be the cause?

reply to post by isyeye


I have seen 'spume' as we used to call it before, but I have never ever seen this much.

Quite staggering really.

Originally posted by isyeye
theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com...
Mystery foam engulfs seaside town in northwest England

Does anyone see the implications of such a rare occurrence??? You know what I mean!

FOAM PARTY!!!!!

Originally posted by DerepentLEstranger
reply to post by isyeye

 

they mention in the article that the foam is oily

has it been tested for corexit?

lol wouldn't it be ironic if the tests came out positive?

My cousin made a MINT from developing a shampoo based on algae:
it's "100% natural". It does though make me consider what kind of unnatural
process might be necessary to make soap out of a sea grass. Hmm.. STAR

Jeez, anything can be made to be suspicious, can't it? They've explained what it is, and it makes sense.
Don't you think that if this was some kind of conspiracy or the result of something suspicious we'd have numerous scientists calling them out? Or is every single scientist in the UK in on the conspiracy too?

reply to post by isyeye


My first post here - I live on the south coast of England and have experienced similar sea foams, though not in such large quantities. The sea foam usually appears after an onshore wind storm and I believe the explanation is this:

Seaweed gets torn off the sea bed and floats to the surface. The weed gets mashed up by waves breaking on the shore, releasing various water soluble chemicals. The one responsible for the foam is called alginin, which, in purified form, is used as a foaming or 'heading' agent in beer! This explains why the sea foam looks so similar the foamy 'head' on British real ales.

A related substance called alginate is also extracted from seaweed to make agar gel, used as a culture medium for bacterial testing/identification in medical labs and educational establishments.

Hope this helps, I don't think there's anything sinister here, just an extreme example of a natural phenomenon.