Ocean color massive sediment load. The most important light-absorbing substance in the oceans is chlorophyll, which phytoplankton use to produce carbon by photosynthesis. Chlorophyll, a green pigment, makes phytoplankton preferentially absorb the red and blue portions of the light spectrum and reflect green light. Ocean regions with high concentrations of phytoplankton have shades of blue-green depending upon the type and density of the phytoplankton population there. The basic principle behind the remote sensing of ocean color from space is that the more phytoplankton is in the water, the greener it is. There are other substances that may be found dissolved in the
Chlorophyll a and excites their electrons. Since the chlorophyll "a" molecules only capture certain wavelengths, organisms may use accessory pigments to capture a wider range of light energy shown as the yellow circles. It then transfers captured light from one pigment to the next as resonance energy, passing energy one pigment to the other until reaching the special chlorophyll "a" molecules in the reaction center. These special chlorophyll "a" molecules are located in both photosystem II and photosystem I. They are known as P680 for Photosystem II and P700 for Photosystem I. P680 and P700 are the primary electron donors to the