Photos: Turkey’s Sea-Snot Disaster

A collection of images from the Sea of Marmara, along Turkey’s coast, where a thick layer of glop known as mucilage, or “sea snot,” has covered shorelines for months.

For more than six months now, parts of the Sea of Marmara along Turkey’s coast have been covered in a thick layer of glop known as mucilage, or “sea snot.” Pollution, warmer temperatures, and other environmental factors appear to have resulted in a proliferation of phytoplankton, which are releasing an “overabundance of mucus.” Government workers have been trying to clean up some of the worst-hit areas as biologists and environmentalists have expressed alarm. Below, you’ll find a recent collection of sea-snot images; for the complete story, read “A Slimy Calamity Is Creeping Across the Sea” by our own Sarah Zhang.