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These tiny photosynthetic creatures, known as coccolithophores, are extremely abundant. When their populations boom they can turn England-sized swaths of ocean an ethereal turquoise—a phenomenon visible from space
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Coccolithophores are crucial to the ocean’s food webs, produce huge amounts of breathable oxygen, and have the power to alter the Earth's geology and atmosphere. Scientists are studying how they might sway climate change and vice versa
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absolutely! we perpetually walk on, and swim through, and breathe in creatures living and dead. we are made of Earth and much of Earth is made of us
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a coccolithophore is a tiny drifting plant-like organism that consists of a single spherical cell. it produces discs of calcium carbonate & covers itself with them, like scales on a dragon's egg, forming the armored spheres you see in the photo
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