Scientists detect a large mass of "white and anomalous" water in the Mar Menor

Scientists from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC) have detected in recent weeks “a large mass of water with a rather abnormal whitish coloration” in the Mar Menor.

This is clear from the latest report presented by the IEO, under the Ministry of Science and Innovation, the scientific team in charge of the monitoring program of the Mar Menor (BELICH), financed by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge in the Framework of Actions for the Recovery of the Mar Menor.

Scientists have adapted the periodic sampling network to determine its composition, monitor its evolution and investigate its possible origin.

According to the satellite images analyzed in recent months, and according to other data available from the monitoring of the Mar Menor, in the area occupied by the identified water mass “the presence of phytoplankton proliferations is common, but not with colouring, current turbidity and extension”, explains Juan Manuel Ruiz, researcher at the IEO-CSIC and coordinator of the scientific team of the BELICH project responsible for the report.

The differentiated water mass occupies a wide marine area between Los Alcázares, Los Urrutias and Perdiguera Island, with variable dimensions of about 15 square kilometers.

The chlorophyll concentration values recorded inside “are up to four times higher than in other parts of the lagoon, indicating a high primary production inside, which has remained more or less stable over time, as can be deduced from the analyzed satellite images”.

These preliminary results also indicate “a high concentration of organic matter in the area, probably of planktonic origin, associated with a high abundance of picoplankton (cells between 0.2 and 2 micrometers in diameter) and cryptophyceans.”

Due to the distribution, extension and dynamics of the differentiated water mass, as well as its physical-chemical characteristics, the scientific team considers that the nutrients that induce planktonic proliferation “could have a diffuse origin, rather than associated with punctual contributions, such as that takes place through the Rambla del Albujón”.

This finding, as well as its study and monitoring, is possible thanks to the recently started BELICH project, whose first plenary meeting was held last April at the IEO- Oceanographic Center of Murcia.

The objective is the development of the tasks of the Framework of Actions for the Recovery of the Mar Menor related to the monitoring of the lagoon and the obtaining of the scientific knowledge necessary for its interpretation and decision-making by the managing bodies.