Let’s Talk About It

Have you seen the above photo? Thru the years it has been popping up on Facebook, Reddit and Twitter. There is also another version of the picture which is shown below. Usually on social media the picture often attributes the natural phenomena as a sign from God or Allah. Alas, this is not true, and anyway the “Word” is a sign from God. So let’s explain what we are actually seeing. First thing is that the picture above does not depict two ocean’s meeting. It was taken in the Gulf of Alaska. The picture below shows the same natural phenomena but from a different viewpoint. This occurs when heavy, sediment-laden water from glacial valleys and rivers pours into the open ocean. Sorry pastor. Ken Bruland, professor of ocean sciences at University of California-Santa Cruz, was the one who snapped the pic while on a 2007 research cruise of oceanographers studying the role that iron plays in the Gulf of Alaska.

He said the purpose of the cruise was to examine how huge eddies, slow moving currents, ranging into the hundreds of kilometers in diameter, swirl out from the Alaska coast into the Gulf of Alaska.  According to Bruland , glacier rivers in the summertime are like buzzsaws eroding away the mountains and in the process, they lift up all this material called it glacial flour that is then deposited in the  286-mile-long Copper River, east of Prince William Sound, carrying with it all that heavy clay and sediment.

As for these specific photo’s, it shows the plume of water pouring out from one of these sediment-rich rivers and meeting with the general ocean water. Another thing is that it is not true, that these waters do not mix. They eventually do according to the professor. You do come across these really strong gradients (divisions) at specific moments in time. Such borders are never static, as they move around and disappear altogether, depending on the level of sediment and the whims of the water. Last but not least, the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean meet at Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America. Cape Horn is located in the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego in Chile. So you see, like I said before the “Word” is our sign.

2 Corinthians 5:6-7

“Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight.”