Saturday, July 18, 2009
(photo: North Slope Borough)
Where are you when we need you, Steven McQueen? The star of the 1958 film, The Blob, knew what to do about that gelatinous, man-eating monster, but officials in Alaska are stumped over what exactly is floating off the state’s coast in the Chukchi Sea. All they know for now is it’s big—12 miles long—and is not made of petroleum, which some had initially suspected.
The dark gooey mass is organic in nature, according to Terry Hasenauer, an officer with the U.S. Coast Guard. Hasenauer told the Anchorage Daily News that based on its smell and makeup, the blob appears to be “some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism.”
Samples were shipped to labs in Fairbanks and Anchorage for testing. On Friday, the laboratory of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation announced that the goop was a form of algae, but it was still unclear where it came from. The Coast Guard is also testing samples and their results are due next week.
Locals cannot recall seeing or hearing of anything like this before. The blob was last reported to be moving north past Barrow and had not come ashore.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Black Goop Afloat Off Arctic Coast Identified as Algae (by Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News)
Huge Blob of Arctic Goo Floats Past Slope Communities (by Don Hunter, Anchorage Daily News)
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