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Sea Turtle Day
"It was a real prairie, a close carpet of seaweed, fucus, and tangle, a perfect meadow, an immense field of algae so compact that the stem of the Nautilus had difficulty in cleaving it."
~ Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne, 1869
Named for the only sea in the world without shores, the Sargasso Sea has long captured the imagination as a place of mystery and quiet menace. Since ancient times, it has been spoken of in hushed tones by sailors, who told tales of its eerie stillness and vast mats of golden-brown sargassum seaweed swirling endlessly in rotating gyres. Trapped by these circular currents, vessels would drift helplessly, their crews slowly succumbing to thirst and starvation. These stories earned the region the grim nickname: the “graveyard of the ocean.”
The tartan inspired by the Sargasso Sea draws on the deep blues of its unusually clear waters and the earthy browns and golds of the sargassum weed, easily identified by its small, berry-like bladders. The exceptional blueness of this sea results from high evaporation rates, warm temperatures, and increased salinity. These conditions limit the upward flow of nutrients from the seabed, creating a zone low in plankton and deep-sea marine life—a kind of oceanic desert.
Yet within this desert floats an oasis. The thick, drifting mats of sargassum provide a floating refuge teeming with life. Recent studies have proposed that this tangled seaweed plays a crucial role in the early lives of sea turtles! After hatching on coastal shores, baby turtles instinctively paddle away from danger, out beyond the continental shelf and into the open Atlantic. There, in the protective embrace of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, they spend their mysterious “lost years” hidden among the sargassum, thriving alongside seahorses, shrimp, jellyfish, and other marine wanderers who call this drifting world home. 💙 💚 💛 🤎 💙 🐢🐢🐢
World Sea Turtle Day is celebrated the same day as the birthday of Dr. Archie Carr, "the father of sea turtle biology." His research and advocacy brought the attention to the conditions that continue to impact sea turtles.
The early life of loggerheads and other sea turtles used to be called “the lost years,” because no one knew exactly where they went. But over decades, researchers pieced together the animals’ natural history from ship observations, the pattern of ocean currents, and other data. Hatchlings head out to sea to avoid fish, sharks, and other predators. Once off the continental shelf, they eventually end up in a current, called the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, and spend many years in the wide Sargasso sea, later returning to their place of origin.
The Sargasso Sea is named for the Sargassum seaweed which floats there, trapped by currents that rotate clockwise around this large area of the North Atlantic. All currents deposit the marine plants and refuse they carry into this sea, yet the ocean water in the Sargasso Sea is distinctive for its deep blue color and exceptional clarity. The Sargasso Sea is often portrayed in literature and the media as an area of mystery.
This tartan, designed by Carol A.L. Martin, is named for the only sea in the world without shores.
For an article from the Smithsonian describing new information about "the lost years" of juvenile sea turtles, click the turtle!