Watermelon snow research --- |Wanderung| Newsletter

lulululu

We posted a story about this last year, but it's too cool not to share
again with another story on the subject from earlier this year.

Wanted - your reports of pink snow in the North Shore mountains.

Many of you will have seen pink snow (aka watermelon snow) in alpine
regions. The colour is caused by the growth on algae in the snow.
Lynne Quarmby, a biologist at SFU, is studying these algae and how
they affect the rate at which snow melts in the arctic. Since it's
easier to collect local samples than go all the way to the arctic, she
is wanting to find samples on the North Shore for her study, and is
looking for the help of all hikers.

If you come across any pink snow in the North Shore mountains, please
contact Lynne Quarmby by email at quarmby@sfu.ca with details on its
location. Photos are good; GPS coordinates are even better (hint: you
can use your phone for this).

Here's a story from earlier this year with some background to the study:

http://www.westender.com/news-is ... ountains-1.11662939

Check out the project's progress so far at their Medium site:

https://medium.com/snow-algae-reports