By Katelyn Oster.
Courtesy of msnNOW.
Countless people are left puzzled and shocked this week because of the mysterious behavior of China’s Yangtze River. The river suddenly turned red for no apparent reason last Thursday, reported to appear the color of “tomato juice” by International Business Times. While the cause of this sudden transformation is being investigated, people are forming their own conclusions based upon the frequency of the rivers and lakes all around the globe facing this same phenomenon.
Just yesterday, Canada’s Montague River also turned a shade of red. Earlier this year, it was the Beirut River that famously suffered from the same affliction. Residents, curious to find out what the cause was for this event, are looking to a variety of options that could be responsible. Some point to the recently spiked activity of solar flares, some point to industrial pollutants, some to the potentiality of a “red tide” and others claim that it is all part of a biblical prophecy to mark the end times.
According to a LiveScience interview, the “red tide” can nearly be ruled out since the algae that creates the tide is normally part of a “marine group” and not of a “freshwater group”. According to Emily Stanley, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, the likelihood of this happening in Chongqing is “highly unlikely”.
An example of “red tide” in Italy. Courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The most commonly held assumption is that some sort of industrial pollutant caused the color change, as evidenced by the experiments performed in the Blackstone River two years ago. The Blackstone River was a testing ground for the U.S. Geological Survey in 2009 for rhodamine WT, a dye that could potentially assist in an understanding of “river flow, water quality, and the movement of contaminants”. When the tests were being performed back then, the agency reassured residents that the dye was not harmful to lifeforms.
Until further research is officially released, there is no definitive answer to the mystery of the Yangtze River’s color change. For now, however, people are left confused about the safety of the water and are awaiting scientific results.
