Photographer Kent Smith took a photo on a cruise ship and had no idea it would drive the internet crazy. He simply thought the photo was the most unusual thing he'd seem on the Alaskan cruise. The photo was of two bodies of water merging in the middle of the Gulf of Alaska and there was foam developing only at their junction. That was July 2010 and since Kent posted the image, it has received well over one million views and is an iconic internet image that "went viral."
The best explanation seems to be that the water closer to the shore was composed of melted glacial waters that were fresh water and laden with glacial silt. The ocean water appears darker and was saltier. They do eventually mix over time, but this shot was captured at the moment when a rush of fresh meltwater was meeting the ocean water. This mysterious phenomenon has kept the internet fascinated for years.
It all started with this photo captioned: "Where the Baltic and the North Sea meet." This photo is of unknown origin, but it has circulated the internet for at least 5 years. There was a lot of speculation about the actual location and reason.
Then on January 20, 2011, the Kent Smith image was referenced in by the Reddit commenters. This image was viewed 71,000 times in one day. That was more times than all of Smith's other photos, sets, collections, and photo streams.
There was another viral surge in September that year and the numbers just kept growing. On February 5, 2013, the Alaska Dispatch news wrote an article about the viral photo and the views continued to rise. After the photo reached 1 million views, he created a Facebook page just for the photo called "Merging Oceans."
Read the Alaska Dispatch News article here.
If you like this, you may like Only In Alaska Can You Wake Up To A Family Of Wild Cats. You may also like 7 Crazy Wildlife Encounters In Alaska That Were Way Too Close For Comfort.
Have you heard about this photo? Have you seen the phenomenon? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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