For more than 100 years plankton biologists and marine geologists have been well aware that coccolithophores, a group of phytoplankton that produce external calcium carbonate plates or coccoliths (see figure on Table of Contents page), are widespread and abundant in the oceans (see Brongersma-Sanders, 1957: Bramlette, 1958). At high concentrations of cells and detached coccoliths, the water appears milky white in color, primarily due to light scatter from the coccoliths. Sightings of “white water” have been reported for virtually all of the world’s oceans. Yet, only recently using ocean satellite remote sensing have we begun to fully appreciate the magnitude of the spatial and temporal scales of coccolithophore blooms (Holligan et al., 1983) and the possible effects upon the optical, thermal and biogeochemical properties of surface ocean waters.

Ackelson, S., W.M. Balch, and P.M. Holligan. 1988. White waters of the Gulf of Maine. Oceanography 1(2):18–22, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1988.03.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.