Scientist says he’s solved the mystery of bizarre white blobs that washed up on Newfoundland coast

A Canadian scientist believes he’s found the answer to the bizarre white blobs that have been popping up along the Newfoundland coast. 

Memorial University Professor, Christopher M. Kozak, was determined to figure out what the weird gooey substance was after the college obtained samples from Placentia Bay. 

Now, ‘with a high degree of confidence,’ Kozak believes it is butyl rubber PVA composite, which is used in the oil and gas industry to clean oil pipes and found in glue, he told The New York Times. 

‘[It] suggests some sort of industrial adhesive or some sort of material that could be used in a variety of industrial sectors,’ he said. 

Newfoundland is known as a center for fishing and industry, and the blobs began appearing a few months ago. 

Canada‘s environmental agency is also investigating the weird substance, but would not comment on Kozak’s hypothesis while they’re still looking into the matter. 

Assistant Professor, Hilary Corlett, traveled to Placentia Bay to gather the samples and the team of scientists that helped Kozak hypothesized that it was polyurethane, which is commonly used to insulate boats in the region, according to NYT. 

When the sample arrived, he told The Guardian: ‘The first thing I did was poke it and smell it.’ 

He found the substance had a ‘rubbery’ texture ‘like overworked bread dough,’ which lead them to think it was an elastomer polymer. 

‘And the smell coming off was a bit like walking through the solvent aisle in your hardware store,’ he told the British outlet. 

After several rounds of testing, they found the item did not have carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, meaning it could not be a natural-occurring thing and all of which is found in polyurethane. It also did not contain sulfur. 

Kozak then conducted a spectroscopy – which studies the structure of atoms and molecules – and found that it had chemical bonds similar to polyvinyl acetate, which is found in the adhesive in the shipping industry, according to The Guardian. 

A mass spectrometry they also conducted found it had characteristics of synthetic rubber. 

‘I did eight different tests, and they all point towards something synthetic,’ the chemist told The Guardian. 

All of this lead to them determining the material was butyl rubber PVA composite, which can be found in white glue. 

‘I’m quite confident that the sample that I handled was PVA butylene rubber,’ he told The Times. 

However, he fears most of the blobs have sunken under water as it is denser than water. The Canadian government has said they found the blobs along 28 miles of coastline, according to The Guardian. 

‘All we are seeing is the stuff that’s being washed ashore. I suspect a lot of this stuff is at the bottom of the sea and being churned up by the comings and goings of the tide,’ he told The Guardian. 

‘This definitely does not belong in the environment. It’s plastic pollution and what worries me is that because of its shape, it could be mistaken by marine wildlife for food.’ 

But the thing he found most funny about the bizarre blobs was that it took so long for someone to reach out to a scientist. 

‘It’s funny that no one thought to reach out to a chemist until very late. Everyone had their own opinions and speculation, but no one was really taking a scientific and experimental point of view,’ he told The Guardian.