Giant Kelp is amazing - it can grow up to a foot a day and forms lush canopies that can be seen by some of the earliest satellites humankind put into space! Kelp has captured people's attention for centuries. Its high iodine content saw it used as a medieval goiter treatment. Darwin wrote about it in The Voyage of the Beagle. It was burned to ash and used to make glass in the 1700s and 1800s. It's really quite incredible how important this beautiful seaweed has been!

 

Giant kelp forests are one of the most exciting ecosystems on earth! Kelp is what we call a ‘foundation species’. In ecosystems where it is present (roughly 25% of the world’s coastlines!) it forms the foundation of the entire ecosystem. It provides food for all manner of herbivores from tiny shrimp to ravenous sea urchins to grazing fish.

 

The images you’re looking at come from photographs taken from the Landsat series of satellites. These satellites photograph the entire surface of the earth every 16 days, and have been doing so since 1984. By tracing patches of kelp, you can do a far more accurate job than a computer, helping to process this mountain of data!