Sparkling Seas Explained

A sinister truth lies behind the rise of beautiful night-time blooms of bioluminescent plankton.

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IT’S A phenomenon that’s become so popular to see and photograph it has its own Facebook group – Bioluminescence Australia – with about 9000 members.

This forum allows users to alert others to sightings of bioluminescent plankton blooms, and swap spectacular images, videos and stories of their experiences.

Through this group in August, photographer and amateur astronomer David Finlay was first alerted to a remarkable bloom along the beaches of Vincentia, Jervis Bay, on the New South Wales south coast (at right).

Sixty people gathered that evening to see planktonic organism Noctiluca scintillans glowing by the bucketful along the tideline.

The light show grew brighter and lasted 4–5 hours as the tide came in. “It was hard to believe,” David told ABC Radio. His captivating images were subsequently splashed across the Australian media.

David is one of many to recently take images and video of this kind of bioluminescent bloom. A few days earlier, the Port of Napier, in New Zealand, was aglow with