Seven American Nights question

This may sound like a stupid question: What causes the ocean to turn yellow at the beginning of Seven American Nights? The American on board becomes very offended when Nadan points this out to him. Any help is greatly appreciated. Aaron Singleton

Aaron Singleton asked:

at the beginning of Seven American Nights? The American on board becomes very offended when Nadan points this out to him. Any help is greatly appreciated.<< Doesn't sound like a stupid question to me. I imagine that the yellow colouration is caused by sand and mud carried out into the ocean by rivers flowing from the American interior. America has been blasted by war and bombs which have destroyed nearly all the vegetation. No longer secured by the roots of trees and plants, the top soil has come loose and blown and washed away. Now the rivers are washing all this loose topsoil out into the sea, where it discolours the water. Nigel

I have always assumed that it was pollution (or perhaps an algae blossom like a red tide) caused by American industry.

I'm with Dan'l. I always thought it was a type of industrial pollution. I'm not sure why it's 'yellow' particularly, but I just assumed it was some poisonous industrial waste.

Thanks for everyone's input on this. I had always assumed that the yellow color came from oil or gasoline etc. leaking into the sea. The only thing that, to me, disputes the pollution theory is the fact that the captain tells Nadan: "It's his country...bleeding to death." That is why I assumed crude oil "bleeding" from the earth. But, after doing a little research, I found several sources that confirm the erosion theory. It seems that dirt carried into the ocean from rivers turns the water yellow (in the worst cases) or green (not quite as bad). Again, thanks to all. Aaron Singleton

On 0, aaron <aaronsingleton at gmail.com> scribbled:

And the captain isn't kidding about the bleeding to death thing. I remember the phrase 'soil erosion' popping up a distressing number of times in Jared Diamond's ''Collapse'' (usually in reference to something like the Mayan collapse, or the Fertile Crescent becoming unfertile, or Australia's environment...) and other places. It's still a little odd in America though - I personally associate yellow effluvium with more China and the Yellow River and company.

Gwern Branwen <gwern0 at gmail.com> writes:

Ah, but see the Dust Bowl. Soil erosion has happened before in the US on a massive scale due to poor agricultural practices or use of land for things it just can't sustain. See http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/DustBowl/ for more information, and there are many other interesting pages via Google.