Orange Goo Mystery Solved …sort of
In early August a mysterious orange goo began appearing in towns along Alaskan shores. At first the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thought the bright gunk might be microscopic eggs.
People in the tiny town of Kivalina found the mystery muck floating near shore, in a river and even in people’s rain barrels. For weeks people were afraid to drink the water.
After sending samples to Anchorage for initial analysis, NOAA sent the samples to a lab in South Carolina where scientists determined that these were not eggs. They discovered the goo to be of plant origin, specifically microscopic spores.
After weeks of wondering plant biologists figured out that the orange goo is a fungus called rust.
Rust is a plant disease that causes stems and leaves to turn brown and poses no risk to people. There hasn’t been much study of rust fungi in the Arctic. And scientists say this is a species of the fungus they have never seen before.
Why this fungus formed and stretched across 150 miles of Alaska coastline still remains another mystery.
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