Something big and strange is floating through the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow.
No one in the area can recall seeing anything like it before.
This huge thing is not oil. One coast guard official said the following:
“It kind of has an odor; I can’t describe it.”
Nobody knows for sure what the gunk is, but Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer says the Coast Guard is sure what it is not.
“It’s certainly biological,” Hasenauer said. “It’s definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter.
“It’s definitely, by the smell and the makeup of it, it’s some sort of naturally occurring organic or otherwise marine organism.”
Local hunters and whale captains first started noticing the stuff sometime early last week. It’s thick and dark and “gooey” and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough’s Planning and Community Services Department.
The U.S. Coast Guard has now accompanied local officials who have flown out to investigate. The agencies found “globs” of the stuff floating miles offshore Friday and collected samples for testing.
A local helicopter has shot video of it from the air, following one strand for 15 miles. The next day the floating substance arrived offshore near Wainwright and local officials collected more samples for testing.
Something else: No one in Barrow or Wainwright can remember seeing anything like this before.
Image and news via Shifting Baselines
via Anchorage Daily News
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