2023-05-18 21:51:52
A “bloom” of red microalgae observed in the Cerces massif in 2018. Jean Gabriel Villa – Jardin du Lautaret – Alpalga
DECRYPTION – Since 2021, a team of Grenoble scientists has been trying to understand this phenomenon linked to micro-organisms that color the snow red and help to accelerate its melting.
On the slopes of the Col du Galibier (Hautes-Alpes), spring is still struggling to set in. At 2300 meters above sea level, the snowpack is more than 2 meters thick in the Roche Noire valley, a pretty stretch of mountain, which rises gently. It is here that the team from the Laboratory of Cellular and Plant Physiology (LPCV) in Grenoble, comes to take a series of samples, before the summer melt.
As part of the Alpalga program, they study the life of microscopic algae that live in the snow, above 2000 meters above sea level. One of them is of particular interest: sanguine nivaloides, a red microalgae, which colors the snow in spring. A “blood snow”, or “blood of the glaciers”, whose secrets scientists are just beginning to unlock.
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