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Smelly sargassum seaweed invades Florida beaches
FILE - Record-breaking blooms of smelly sargassum seaweed are invading Florida beaches. FOX Weather Correspondent Brandy Campbell was successful Dania Beach connected July 23 and explains that adjacent though the brownish microalgae tin beryllium beneficial for marine life, it tin go a messiness aft decomposing connected the beach.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Particularly odorous seaweed known arsenic sargassum has made its instrumentality to beaches on South Florida's Atlantic-facing seashore during the last week of outpouring interruption for immoderate U.S. colleges.
Sargassum was spotted connected Fort Lauderdale beaches Friday, according to the nonprofit sargassum-tracking institution Sargassum Monitoring.
RECORD SARGASSUM LEVELS IMPACTING FLORIDA BEACHES DURING SPRING BREAK
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FILE - Sargassum algae piles up on the enactment astatine a formation successful Puerto Rico connected May 19, 2025 (Photo by Ricardo ARDUENGO / AFP)
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FILE - Swaths of sargassum, oregon seaweed, washed up successful Key Biscayne connected Thursday, April 24 and was raked into piles to beryllium taken to the landfill. ( )
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FILE - A heap of sargassum, oregon seaweed, connected Key Biscayne's coastline connected Thursday, April 24. (Ashley Miznazi/The Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) ( )
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FILE - Cog lays connected seaweed that washed ashore connected March 16, 2023 successful Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (Joe Raedle)
According to NOAA, sargassum rots connected beaches and releases hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells similar rotten eggs.
FLORIDA FRENZY: SARGASSUM, DEAD DOLPHINS AND COCAINE SHARKS MAKE HEADLINES DURING SPRING BREAK
The Florida Department of Health said hydrogen sulfide tin irritate the eyes, chemoreceptor and throat, which tin beryllium peculiarly problematic for radical with asthma and different breathing conditions.
While sargassum has been documented for centuries, it archetypal became a large contented on Florida and Caribbean beaches successful 2011 erstwhile ample rafts of the smelly algae washed up connected fashionable abrogation destinations.
Beachgoers locomotion past seaweed that washed ashore connected March 16, 2023 successful Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
Scientists person attributed this to the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt — a elephantine bloom of seaweed successful the Atlantic Ocean that has grown astir each twelvemonth since 2011. According to NASA, successful March 2023, the magnitude of Sargassum seaweed successful the Belt totaled 13 cardinal tons.
The heavy rafts of Sargassum seaweed are past carried by water currents and lavation onto beaches.
Beachgoers beryllium among the sargassum seaweed that lines the beaches successful Fort Lauderdale connected June 23, 2022. The metropolis has started composting the seaweed into soil. (Image: Brandy Campbell/FOX Weather)
(FOX Weather)
Scientists haven't travel to a consensus connected the origin of this caller growth.
Some property it to accrued cultivation runoff from North and South America, arsenic good arsenic Africa, portion different fashionable proposal posits that changes successful seasonal winds person allowed deep, nutrient-rich h2o to emergence person to the oversea aboveground wherever the seaweed grows.
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