Phytoplankton Bloom in Lake Ontario

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Monday, 25 August 2008, 08:08 CDT Download full size image

This image shows a phytoplankton bloom in Lake Ontario, which is bounded by the Canadian province of Ontario in the north and New York state in the south. It was captured by the MODIS on the Aqua satellite on August 20, 2008.

The swirls of green are actually microscopic marine plants called phytoplankton. Much like their land-based plant relatives, they use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into food.

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