Sediments or algal blooms or both

[PirateVert]

Dear WW Community,

I would appreciate some advice regarding the color of lakes rivers and estuaries. What can be interpreted as shallow waters, sediment or algal bloom or other?

In particular, I am referring to the bright yellow and green plumes we see extending out into the ocean in the estuaries of major rivers we see on NLT Landsat 7 imagery.

For example, the Fraser (BC and Washington), the Yangtze (China), etc...
I presume that the bright green color of Lake Winnipeg is an algal bloom.
Correct?

NB: The ocean plankton blooms in the Rapid Fire Modis are quite spectacular. Are there other references of interest?

Thank you.

Paul.

[KoS]

I don't have NWW handy right now. I would assume the Yangtze plume is caused from sediment. IIRR, it's heavily laden with sediment and now pollution. Don't know enough about the Fraser.

As for shallows, alot is dependent on the water(like the color), underlying material, and few other factors. For example, there is one lake in NH. When looking at the shallows using true color imagery it looks a tea shade of color. The tea shade is a combination of the bright sandy bottom and darker water color, which almost looks black.

I can't think of any references off the top my head other than, remotesensing.org or search around NASA's pages for remote sensing and/or photo interpretation info. I would have to search around for the other links I have stashed away.


KoS

[lengai]

If you want to see a spectacular bloom, look at lake natron in North West Tanzania on the boarder with Kenya. The blooms are bright red! I've been the lake a few times and it is cynobacteria that is eaten by flamingos there. The lake is alkalyine and extremely acidic.

Pretty cool,

Michael

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...e_labelled.jpg