MODIS - Terra

Sulfur plumes rising up from the bottom of the ocean floor produce colorful swirls in the waters off the coast of Namibia in southern Africa.

Dust from the Sahara Desert blows out over the Atlantic Ocean, and nutrients present in the dust "fertilize" the water, supporting blooms of marine plant life. This true-color image shows a bloom of phytoplankton occurring in the Atlantic Ocean beneath a cloud of dust. At the image's lower left are the Cape Verde Islands.

Colorful swirls of phytoplankton in the Atlantic coastal waters stretching southward from the Namib Desert and rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Reports from water sampling at the site indicate that it is a rather unusual red tide containing a mixture of organisms called dinoflagellates and a species of coccolithophore called Syrachosphaera pulchra. Ocean waters that contain the organism appear very bright blue or green.