False-Color Image of a Large Bloom of Cyanobacteria (IMAGE)

University of Bristol

False-Color Image of a Large Bloom of Cyanobacteria

Caption

On Aug. 11, 2015, a NASA satellite captured this false-color image of a large bloom of cyanobacteria (Nodularia) swirling in the Baltic Sea. These cyanobacteria fix inorganic atmospheric nitrogen (N2) into a form available to Life, a process fundamental for marine ecosystems. In our paper we show that nitrogen fixation becomes even more important when the state of oxygenation of the ocean declines.

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Photo courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory/USGS <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86449/blooming-baltic-sea" target="_blank">https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86449/blooming-baltic-sea</a>

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