OCCURRENCE OF COCOOLITHOPHORES BETWEEN MAURITANIA AND THE CAPE VERDE ISLANDS Herbert Siegel1, Thomas Ohde1, Monika Gerth1, Ilka Peeken2, T. Leipe1
[email protected]@io-warnemuende.de, warnemuende.de,
[email protected]@io-warnemuende.de, warnemuende.de,
[email protected]@io-warnemuende.de, warnemuende.de,
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected]@iowarnemuende.de, 1Leibniz
Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde 2Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Abstract Milky turquoise waters visible in true colour satellite imagery occur in the upwelling area off Mauritania similar as in the Benguela upwelling off Namibia. These plumes are characterized by high reflectances due to enhanced light scattering. Off Namibia the offshore plumes were identified as coccolithophore blooms of Emiliania huxleyi. During a SOPRAN cruise in February 2008 onboard r.v. L’Atalante coccolithophores were identified using different methods like HPLC pigment analysis, Scanning Electronic Microscopy SEM, and spectral particle absorption. The coccolithophores were characterized by the marker pigment 19’- hexanoyloxyfucoxanthin, SEM, and a double absorption maximum in the blue spectral range similar to measurements off Namibia, in the Kattegat or in algae cultures. End of 2008 a bloom was followed by MODIS, SeaWiFS and MERIS satellite data for 20 days east of Cape Verde Islands with similar spectral signature as off Namibia (MERIS). The SeaWiFS coccolithophore algorithm verified the occurrence of coccolithophores.
Address Herbert Siegel, Thomas Ohde, Monika Gerth, Thomas Leipe Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde Seestrasse 15, D-18119 Rostock, Germany Ilka Peeken Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Am Handelshafen 12, D-27570 Bremerhaven, Germany
