After Sydney’s ‘mysterious’ tar balls, another beach faces a white blob puzzle

KEY POINTS
  • Mysterious white blobs have washed up on the shore of a Canadian island province.
  • Canadian authorities say they are treating the case “very seriously” but are unsure about what exactly they are.
  • A preliminary analysis of the blobs suggested they could be plant-based.
Tar balls closing Sydney’s beaches left authorities confused and as they tried to solve the mystery, others thousands of miles away were also scratching their heads over another coastal puzzle.
Slimy, spongy blobs, some as big as dinner plates, have been washing up on the shores of the Canadian island province of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean for weeks — and it’s baffling scientists.
They were discovered by beachcombers in early September, scattered along the pebbly beaches of Placentia Bay on the island’s southern tip, and have captured the imagination of locals ever since.
Several people posted photos on social media asking if anyone knew anything about them.
The comments poured in, with some speculating that it might be lumps of cheese, alien poop or whale boogers.

“OMG is that Olaf?” one person wrote, referring to the snowman character in the Disney movie Frozen.

‘Mysterious’ substance is flammable

Others thought it might have been discarded gingerbread dough or paraffin wax from a tanker being cleaned and discharged at sea. They tried to set them on fire and discovered that they were flammable.
Authorities say they are taking this potential pollution threat to the coastal environment “very seriously.”

The Canadian Coast Guard sent a three-person team “to assess the situation” and collected samples from the blobs on beaches west of the provincial capital of St. John’s for testing.

A white blob-like substance on a beach.

The mysterious blobs have scientists baffled as testing continues. Source: Facebook / Vanessa Mooney

Federal environmental officials also visited the area several times and, according to the Ministry of the Environment, conducted extensive “aerial, underwater and manual surveys of the area’s beaches and coastlines to determine the extent of the substance, what it is and the potential source of it. “.

“At this time, neither the substance nor its source has been identified,” Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) spokeswoman Eleni Armenakis told the AFP news agency.
“Preliminary analysis in an ECCC laboratory suggests the material could be plant-based,” she said.

However, further analysis of the “mystery substance” is needed to determine exactly what it is and its potential effects, she added.

What happened to Sydney’s tar balls?

They were and led to the closure of several beaches including Bondi and Coogee.
Tar balls form when oil comes into contact with other dirt and water, usually as a result of oil spills or spills.
But even if later that week, the source of the black balls – which turned out not to be very poisonous to humans – remained “somewhat of a mystery”.
A group of black 'tar balls' washed up on the sand of a beach.

Tar balls forced the closure of several Sydney beaches last week. Source: MONKEY / Steven Markham

The NSW Environment Protection Australia said it was still investigating the balls and would not be able to provide a clear explanation of where they came from until testing was completed.

At least 2,000 tar balls were removed during the clean-up operation and NSW Maritime said it appeared to be an isolated incident.

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