Rock Snot Explained

VIU Professor Uncovers Mystery Rock Snot

"When they started fertilizing the forests it stimulated not just tree growth but all soil microbial activity. The forest floor is a huge network of microorganisms and it was taking up the phosphorus that would usually run into the river," said Bothwell. "We could finally show that the aggressive growth of rock snot is caused by ultra-low phosphorus conditions, something that was very hard to accept. We all knew that adding more nutrients, especially phosphorus, to a river system always equals more algae and here I came face-to-face with the exact opposite of that. It was unbelievable."

Bothwell's hypothesis is that climatic warming of landscapes increases the level of biological activity on land and decreases the amount of phosphorus entering rivers, causing conditions similar to the effect of adding urea fertilizer. Add to that increasing levels of nitrogen from fossil fuel use and you get the perfect conditions for the blooms to occur.