Marine

A frothy Stonehaven shoreline (Photo: J. Dunn 21/02/11)

On the surface the sea may look stormy, but biologically speaking, this is the period of calm before the storm! At this time of the year, there is very little phytoplankton or zooplankton in the water. Just around the temporal corner, the primary and secondary productivity of the sea around us will experience something comparable to a storm surge i.e. the spring bloom! The spring bloom begins slightly earlier (March) on the west coast where the water is slightly warmer than on the east coast (April).

The stormy sea state all last week prevented the collection of samples. This unsettled sea state has continued into this week, but we are still hopeful that samples will be collected later in the week -after all, its only Monday today and there’s plenty of time yet in the week!