When Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupted in 2018, it destroyed some 700 homes and sent hundreds of millions of tons of lava pouring into the ocean, creating billowing clouds and explosions along the coast. Soon, satellite imagery revealed something else happening: apparent huge blooms of marine phytoplankton popping up. That July, a team of scientists set out in a research vessel for several days to monitor the water and take samples around the clock, in an attempt to understand what was happening. Their working hypothesis: the surging lava was delivering mineral nutrients to the relatively nutrient-poor waters, sparking the bloom. But, as told in a study published in the journal Science this week, they were mistaken. A previously unsuspected mechanism was at work, one with wider implications for how marine biological processes work.
Click here for original story, The surprising way a volcanic eruption fueled a bloom of ocean algae
Source: Phys.org