Tourists have changed the color of the lake coins

For decades, thousands of tourists visit Yellowstone National Park. One of their favorite places - a small thermal spring morning glory (Morning Glory). Over the years, the tradition of throwing it in the великолепное blue lake coins on memory, as well as stones and other debris.

Nobody thought that the coins and stones partially block the underground hot springs and change the temperature of the lake. So now it began to settle in photosynthetic organisms of other species that used to live here could not.





These new microbes formed the so-called цианобактериальные mats - highly integrated prokaryotic communities that are partly responsible for a new palette morning glory and other hot springs in Yellowstone.

Each bacterium has a favorite temperature, so they are distributed in the water volume, the hottest in the center.

Scientists from the University of Montana and the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany) made a mathematical model that accurately calculates the color temperature at the last source.



And how it looks now.



Work опубликована in the journal "Applied Optics» (Applied Optics, Vol. 54, Issue 4, pp. B128-B139 (2015)).

The easiest way to draw a conclusion that the pollution of nature by man - it's bad. But in this case is not so simple.

Firstly, the new color is beautiful too. Secondly, this is a unique opportunity for biologists to observe the evolution of photosynthetic bacteria. At different depths, they absorb light in a different spectrum (ie, photons of different energies). Due to the evolutionary process is possible to obtain bacteria useful in the pharmaceutical industry, or enzymes for use in solar cells, пишет Science Friday.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/245562/