Dictionary

milky sea en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A milky or pale blue-green glow in seawater (caused by bioluminescent plankton or bacteria), observed on some moonless nights (especially in the Indian Ocean), differing from other kinds of seafire by occurring over a vast expanse and even when the water is undisturbed (by oars, etc).
   • [A study of] milky seas failed to identify dinoflagellates as the causative agent (41). Milky seas are commonly reported in calm waters, and dinoflagellate blooms, even in turbulent seas, fail to produce constant, uninterrupted light […] 2008, Stephen Carlyle Winans, Bonnie L. Bassler, Chemical Communication Among Bacteria, page 265
   • {{...} areas of weak but steady glow at the surface, bright enough in aggregate to register from orbit. The most famous of these surface events are "milky seas." Sailors have described them for centuries: nights when the ocean appears to shine with a pale, uniform radiance, sometimes as far as the horizon in all directions. Unlike the spark-like bursts produced by disturbed dinoflagellates in a ship's wake, a milky sea is a continuous sheen. The ship does not cut through a dark surface and leave a glowing trail; instead it moves through a luminous field. […] A sailor's report may be vivid, but it is also subjective, and milky seas are rare enough that few scientists ever encountered one directly. […] From space, a milky sea becomes a measurable patch, potentially hundreds of kilometers across. […] 2026, Elise M. Thornton, The Glowing Dark: The Science of Bioluminescence and the Creatures That Make Their Own Light
   • A milky sea shines from horizon to horizon like a field of fresh snow (when only the surface layers shine) or a cloud (when deeper layers also shine).
   • CAN BACTERIAL LIGHT BE SEEN FROM SPACE? Miller et al. (2005) asked this question after looking at reports of the "milky sea" phenomenon well known to sailors in the Arabian Sea […] Miller and colleagues obtained the location and time of a milky sea occurrence reported by a ship's captain some years earlier and noted this record in the ship's log: "The bioluminescence appeared to cover the entire sea area, from horizon to horizon ... and it appeared as though the ship was sailing over a field of snow or gliding over the clouds" (Nealson and Hastings, 2006). Miller et al. then checked the output from the meteorological satellites that monitor global cloud coverage under daytime and nighttime conditions. After adjusting spectral frequencies of the output, they produced images (Figure 4.6) of the milky sea, showing that it covered >15000 km2; they deduced that this was bacterial bioluminescence, probably due to Vibrio harveyi in association with massive blooms of Phaeocystis algae. 2019, Colin Munn, Marine Microbiology: Ecology & Applications, page 61
   • Henry Grafton Chapman […] described the Milky Sea, one of the rarest aspects of the ocean, an appearance which is due to animal life. In the Indian Ocean, near the Island of Christmas, on the 1st of August, 1854, when the wind had fallen, the moon gone down, and amidst deep darkness, the sea began frothing and effervescing around the vessel like a glass of Seidlitz water. When a bucket of water was drawn tip it was full of animals, which seemed like vermicelli, yellow, alive, and phosphorescent. The white edge which the breakers display in their spray has been ascribed to the lime in the globules, which is made apparent, for a moment, by the force and shock of the wind and tide, pebbles and beach. 1889, Manford's Magazine, volume 33, page 22

Forms

Coordinates

list in seafire

Relateds

sea sparkle

Synonyms

milky seas