Historical Perspective of Phytoplankton Blooms on Long Island and the Green Tides of the 1950’s

Abstract

During the early 1950’s, Great South Bay and Moriches Bay, located on the South Shore of Long Island, NY (Fig 1), supported extremely dense blooms of phytoplankton, which characteristically appeared in the early spring and persisted throughout the summer and fall. At the peak of their growth, these microorganisms exceeded concentrations of 10 million cells ml⁻¹, and the resulting turbidity turned the water a vivid green color and reduced Secchi disc transparency to a tenth of a meter or less in places.