FUCK YEAH, PHYTOPLANKTON!

mabelmoments:

This may look like Salvador Dali’s Mae West Lips Sofa, but it is a colourised scanning electron microscope image of a diatom - a tiny single-celled marine creature invisible to the naked eye. Diatoms are a type of algae or phytoplankton that typically measure just 0.002 inches across, and are thought to pre-date the dinosaurs. Oceanographer Dr Paul Hargreaves uses an electron microscope to photograph the creatures, and artist Faye Darling uses digital paint programmes to colourise them.

Electron microscope images of diatoms by Dr Paul Hargreaves and Faye Darling

(Source: )

ohscience:

fossil marine diatom, actinoptychus heliopelta, 900x

ohscience:

diatoms

wornwit:

Red tide in Xiamen, in China’s Fujian Province, April 21, 2007.

Red tides are nutrient-fueled blooms of phytoplankton (often dinoflagellates) that discolor water with their pigments. Several species are known to have toxic effects on marine life and pose a risk to human health through the consumption of exposed shellfish. 

(Source: picalla)

ohscience:

freshwater phytoplankton, mainly diatoms and dinoflagellates from lake chuzenji in japan

wornwit:

Phytoplankton blooms in the contential shelf on the coast of Florida. 

(Source: picalla)

Scanning electron micrograph of the phytoplankton (plant plankton) Chrysococcus sculptus, showing a Chrysophyte statocyst (resting stage in lifecycle) taken from a lake affected by the 1980 Mt. St. Helens eruption. Mag: X 34,300.