The Beach is a Massive Protein Skimmer

[TheFishTeen]

I was explaining to someone how a protein skimmer works, when suddenly I realized the beach is basically a massive protein skimmer!

Think about it, bubbles are forced into a cup so when they pop, the organics are released and caught in the cup so it can be removed.

Same thing with the beach! Bubbles are pushed up onto the sand and when they pop, the organics are released. Massive protein skimmer! What are your thuaghts?

 

[elegance coral]

Not quite. Skimmers remove the foam from the system. On the beach, they just break down, and go back into the water. If there is foam that settles on the beach, above the water line, the first rain storm will simply wash much of it right back into the water. Then, if you add up all the places with enough organics in the water, and high enough surf, to create foam, and compare that to the total volume of the oceans, you'll see that the process is irrelevant, even if it was acting like a skimmer. It would be much more efficient to put one of those little nano skimmers on Shamu's tank.

 

[pskelton]

The ocean is more of an algae scrubber:hmm5:

 

[elegance coral]

The oceans don't act like an algae scrubber either. There is no mechanism to remove algae, and the nutrients it contains, from our oceans. Like there is with an algae scrubber. Nutrients simply move through the algae in the ocean, and return to where they came from, where they're able to fuel more algae growth.
The ocean doesn't need a "filter" like we do on our systems. The ocean simply cycles nutrients.
IMHO, the closest we can come to imitating nature, is to remove detritus and the nutrients it contains, after it settles in the sand. This would imitate nutrients being locked under layers of sedimentation and unable to reenter the water. Then we add nutrients with the food we feed, which would imitate the nutrients reentering the water after plate tectonics has pushed layers of sediments up onto land, where they erode, and the nutrients flow back into the ocean. Even this is a stretch of the imagination. We simply can't duplicate what nature does, in a tiny glass box in our living room.

 

[jcw]

In chicago, the foam sometimes sits on the beach so yes.

 

[Opcn]

The volume of shore skimmate is extremely low for the oceans stocking level. Primarily it's a matter of volume, not for dilution but for planktonic reproduction. Phytoplankton grows in the abundant sunlight and runs up trophic levels. If you had a true algae scrubber or protein skimmer in the ocean you would also need a giant can of flake food to balance things out.

 

[psteeleb]

i'd agree that the ocean waves can act like a skimmer and the beach it's collection cup

anyone want a bath in skimate?

Here we see kids frolicking and playing in the wonderful ocean foam, oblivious to the fact that it is comprised of dead plants, decomposed fish, and seaweed excretions!"

The London Daily Mail's Sydney correspondent, Richard Shears wrote:
Scientists explain that the foam is created by impurities in the ocean, such as salts, chemicals, dead plants, decomposed fish and excretions from seaweed. All are churned up together by powerful currents which cause the water to form bubbles. These bubbles stick to each other as they are carried below the surface by the current towards the shore.

As a wave starts to form on the surface, the motion of the water causes the bubbles to swirl upwards and, massed together, they become foam. The foam 'surfs' towards shore until the wave 'crashes', tossing the foam into the air.

'It's the same effect you get when you whip up a milk shake in a blender,' explains a marine expert. 'The more powerful the swirl, the more foam you create on the surface and the lighter it becomes.'

In this case, storms off the New South Wales Coast and further north off Queensland had created a huge disturbance in the ocean, hitting a stretch of water where there was a particularly high amount of the substances which form into bubbles.

 

[elegance coral]

What happens to that nastiness when it rains?