GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - NASA has awarded Texas A&M University at Galveston a one-year, $100,000 grant to fund study of why seaweed is infesting Texas beaches.
A university statement Thursday says the Sargassum seaweed carpets any of the 376 miles of Texas shoreline periodically but unpredictably.
The seaweed is born in the Sargasso Sea, the becalmed area of the Atlantic Ocean between the Gulf Stream and the North Equatorial Current. The current then carries the weed into the Gulf of Mexico, where it washes ashore on its coasts.
A&M-Galveston marine scientists Tom Linton and Robert Webster have been working to predict where and when the ugly, smelly seaweed will wash ashore.
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