This is the Guardian.

In the vast stretch of ocean between Africa and America, something strange is happening.

It sounds like science fiction. A 5,000 mile long belt of seaweed weighing more than 11 million tons

is sloshing around in the Atlantic Ocean.

This giant algal blob is creeping its way across the Caribbean and towards the eastern US coast.

When some of it reaches Florida, it threatens to wreak havoc in the coastal waters and on the beaches.

And every year this seaweed, called Sargassum, is growing bigger and coming earlier.

Scientists have been tracking massive accumulations since 2011,

but this year's balloon could be the largest ever.

So what's making the sargassum bloom to record sizes? And what, if anything, can we do about it?

From the Guardian, I'm Madeline Finley, and this is Science Weekly.

Brian Le Point, you're a research professor at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, and one area you've

done lots of work on is Sargassum. So what is this stuff?

So Sargassum is a floating brown seaweed. There are hundreds of species of sargassum that are attached to the bottom of the ocean in shallow coastal areas, but the two species

that we're talking about today are the two floating species called Sargassum Fluitans and Sargassum Naitans.

And tell me a bit more about where we might usually expect to find it under normal circumstances.

So Sargassum was observed by Columbus and his sailors when he came to the New World in 1492.

He sailed through the Sargagasso Sea, which is the subtropical gyre in the North Atlantic Ocean,

and they saw large patches of this floating sargassum. The name actually comes from the

description of the Portuguese sailors and so the name sargasso sea actually does come from the seaweed Sargassum.

So there must be quite a lot of Sargassum there. What kind of quantities do you normally

find it in these areas in these oceans?

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