Phytoplankton

About two-thirds of the Earth's oxygen is produced by phytoplankton.

Some seaweeds are microscopic, such as the phytoplankton that live suspended in the water column and provide the base for most marine food chains, and some are enormous, like the giant kelp that grow in abundant “forests” and tower like underwater redwoods from their roots at the bottom of the sea.

Scientists found concentrations of the microorganism that were “almost two orders of magnitude greater than any other concentration of phytoplankton ever found on the Earth,” according to Dr. Paula Bontempi, NASA’s Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry program manager.

The lack of sea ice left phytoplankton to the mercies of an increasingly wind-whipped surface, particularly along the northern Peninsula.