Fumes from rotting seaweed on France's northern beaches could kill

[phantom power]

Holidaymakers have been told to keep away from beaches in northern France covered in seaweed after doctors gave warning that it could give off lethal fumes when it rots.

A stretch of beach had to be closed after a horse rider lost consciousness as a result of the putrefying algae. His horse was killed. Local residents have also been treated in hospital.

The incident was in Brittany, where green seaweed is spreading across the region’s beaches as nitrates pollute the water supply as a result of intensive agriculture.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6740746.ece

[Botany]

1. Are they sure it is not the cheese?

[pansypoo53219]

6. the zebra mussels have created that on lake michigan in Milw

and that shit does smell BAD. surprzed `anybody would come near it. finally we have started doing something before it rots on our shores.

[Fridays Child]

2. From fossil fuel fertilizers runing off and draining into the sea.

Same thing in the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone.

[dgibby]

3. Could the seaweed be harvested and used for organic fertilizer?

I realize it would probably require hazmat suits,but is is possible or is this some type of seaweed that couldn't be used (I'm thinking of something similar to the "red tide"). If it's useful, someone could be making a load of money and cleaning up the beaches=a win/win.

[izquierdista]

4. Free biomass

If they fixed up a skip loader, they could be piling it into biogas digesters. I'm going to hazard a guess that the noxious gas is H2S, which usually isn't a problem unless you are in a confined space. If there is enough rotting seaweed to get toxic levels on a beach, that must be some HUGE pile of rotting crap!

[Fridays Child]

8. Aka a huge pile of (almost) free energy.

[Fridays Child]

7. I was asking exactly the same question two weeks ago, as I untangled the seaweed from my legs...

...while swimming at Torrance Beach. Seriously, there has to be something that stuff is good for. All biomass is really just energy waiting to be converted from one form to another, right?

[ensho]

5. kick - and in the US and Can. lakes and ponds that can kill and sicken

nt

[NickB79]

9. Hydrogen Sulfide!!! I knew it!!!

"Scientists say that as the seaweed — known locally as sea lettuce — decomposes, it forms an impermeable white crust under which hydrogen sulphide accumulates. When the crust is broken, the gas is released."

Just like Peter Ward hypothesized occurred in the Permian Mass Extinction in his book, Under a Green Sky. The oceans warmed up to the point they became anoxic, most sea life became extinct, and the waves were covered in massive mats of green algae as far as the eye could see, otherwise known as a Canfield Sea. The clouds of hydrogen sulfide killed all animal life within miles of the shoreline.

[phantom power]

10. La la la la, not listening!

I'm thinking about cute puppies, lalalalaaaaa!