Snow algae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Snow algae describes cold-tolerant algae and cyanobacteria that grow on snow and ice. Visible algal blooms may be called red or watermelon snow. Snow algae is studied to understand the glacial ecosystem.
Snow algae has been described in the Arctic and on Arctic sea ice, and from Greenland, the Antarctic, Alaska the westcoast and eastcoast of North America, the Himalayas, Japan, New Guinea, Europe, China, Patagonia in Chile and the South Orkney Islands.
More famously, red snow was mentioned in Jules Verne's book "The Desert of Ice", which describes an expedition to the North Pole, decades before such were possible. Verne notes that the red snow effect is caused by fungi, and was known in Switzerland and Baffin Bay.
[edit] See also
- Ice algae, the various types of algal communities encountered in annual and multi-year sea-ice.
