The perplexing patches of light-colored ocean are sometimes noticed in other oceans and lakes worldwide, but in the Bahamas, they pop up more often than usual. Direct sampling of the cloudy waters suggests they contain high concentrations of carbonate-rich particles. Much of the Bahama archipelago sits on a submerged platform of carbonate known as the Bahama Banks. Does this mean sediments are rising to the surface? Or could it be that blooms of phytoplankton are actually producing the suspended material? No one knows the answers to those questions, but scientists at USF are determined to find out. They've used satellite images from NASA to show how whiting events ebb and flow in the Bahamas. The team doesn't know if the trends they've identified are natural or human-caused, but what they do know is that from 2003 to 2020, the size of these whiting events seemed to correlate with the seasons. The largest patches occurred from March to May and October to December. On a day with clear skies, satellite images usually snapped about 24 of them, covering a total area of 32 square kilometers. Between 2011 and 2015, however, the patches suddenly swelled in size, covering more than 200 square kilometers of the ocean at their peak. By 2019, however, the patches shrunk again, although they never got quite as small as they had previously been. The findings suggest a 10-year cycle might be at play. But a cycle of what exactly?