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Capricorn Channel Blooms

Australia's Capricorn Channel is known to host blooms of the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria, Trichodesmium, from time to time. This Landsat 8 scene collected on August 30, 2018 shows widespread yellowish-brown linear features that are most probably colonies of these bacteria gathered into slicks at the sea surface. The color and texture of such surface slicks has led mariners to give them the name, sea sawdust.

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