The claim: Photo shows where two oceans meet but do not touch in the Gulf of Alaska
A viral image posted on social media in 2016 and re-emerging recently suggests pointing to the meeting point of two different oceans that never touch the Gulf of Alaska.
The Facebook post, which was shared on January 10, 2016, with more than 4,300 shares, contains a photo of a light blue ocean merging with a darker one.
A text above the photo reads: ‘This is the Gulf of Alaska where 2 oceans meet but do not mix. Tell me that there is no God, and I will ask you ‘Who commanded the mighty waves and said they could not go beyond that’! What an absolutely AMAZING God ….. “
Some users on Facebook have shared other versions of the claim in the form of a video that pretends in the same way to show a phenomenon where the Atlantic and Pacific meet.
One user who shared the video on February 15 claims that it was taken with the cruise ship to the tip of South America.
“Why don’t these waters mix? Because there is a big difference in salinity between the clear water coming from melting glaciers, which contains cool and little salt, while the water from the second ocean has a high salt concentration,” the user said. the caption of the February 15 video. “Therefore, the two oceans have different densities, making it almost impossible to mix.”
USA TODAY contacted users who shared the image and video for comment.
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Where did the image and video originate?
The image of the merging dark and light blue ocean is real and was captured by Kent Smith, who shared the photo with Flickr on July 4, 2010 and tagged Alaska as the location of the photo.
Smith explains that his image first became virgin on Tumblr in 2011. From there, it was shared by Yahoo! News’s “Snapshots of the Week” and in an article from the Anchorage Daily News in 2013.
“I thought it was the most unusual thing I saw on the Alaska cruise in the water,” Smith captioned his photo. “These two bodies of water fused in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska and a foam first developed at their intersection.”
He adds that he is ‘fairly confident’ that the image depicts the result of the melting glaciers consisting of fresh water, and that the ocean has a higher percentage of salt, causing the two bodies of water to have different densities. He posted similar photos of the phenomenon to confirm that it was not photographed.
The video recorded in the reports, which shows a similar phenomenon of seemingly merging oceans, was captured on July 4, 2015 in Georgia Street near Vancouver, Canada, according to AFP.
“The river water (Fraser River) flows into the ocean water (Georgia Strait): a short video clip shot from the BC Ferries boat from Nanaimo, Vancouver Island (Duke Point) to Vancouver (Tsawwassen),” reads the caption of the video.
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Photos do not show two oceans that do not touch
As Smith noted in his caption, the image shows what happens when fresh water from glaciers melts near the salt water of the ocean, making it difficult to mix the two bodies of water due to the different densities.
Large vortices, known as moving currents, in the Gulf of Alaska carry glacial sediment and heavy clay from various rivers in Alaska, and these materials are lifted and carried into the gulf, according to Only In Your State.
It is false to claim that the two bodies never touch. Eventually it mixes and it only looks separate when there are strong slopes coming out against the salt water.
The video included in the postings shows a similar situation taking place near Vancouver.
According to a 2013 study by Ocean Networks Canada, the Fraser River reaches the ocean near Vancouver and mixes the fresh water it carries with the ocean water to form a thin plume of living brackish water. ‘
“In early summer when the Fraser River carries high sediment load, the plume is easily distinguished from seawater by its light brown color,” the study’s authors wrote. “It can be very reflective and opaque to sunlight, and because it’s a mixture of river and ocean water, it can be quite ‘fresh’.”
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Our rating: false
IMAGES and videos that claim to show where two oceans meet but do not touch are FALSE, based on our research. Although the images and videos are authentic, it does not indicate where two oceans meet that never touch. The phenomenon is rather the result of fresh water from a glacier or river mixing with salt water from the ocean, causing the two bodies of water to look separate due to different densities.
Our sources for fact checking:
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Flickr, July 4, 2010, Merging Oceans
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Yahoo! News, November 4, 2011, screenshots of the week
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Anchorage Daily News, April 5, 2017, Mythbusting ‘the place where two oceans meet’ in the Gulf of Alaska
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Flickr, July 4, 2010, Merging Oceans-The Other Images
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YouTube, July 4, 2015, When the River Meets the Ocean (Fraser River water stream in the Straat of Georgia)
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AFP Canada, September 24, 2020, photos and videos shared with false allegations about oceans gathering in the Gulf of Alaska
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Only in your state, September 23, 2016, this strange phenomenon must be seen in the Gulf of Alaska to believe
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Ocean Networks Canada, August 6, 2013, Fraser River Plume
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This article originally appeared in the US TODAY: Fact Check: The picture does not meet two oceans that do not touch