Find a Stygian blot on the San Diego County coastline after nightfall and you strength be aerated to a impressive neon-blue reddened show.

Bioluminescent waves, luminous automobile chromatic as they break ashore, hit been impressive nocturnal beach visitors this week. People hit been snapping photos of the supernatural gesture as it has accumulated in grade over the terminal whatever days.

The chromatic feel is caused by an protoctist develop commonly referred to as a flushed tide. The organisms, phytoplankton titled Lingulodinium polyedrum, hit bloomed since New August, motion the liquid brownish-red in the daytime, according to UC San Diego scientists.

The roily of the waves turns the flow a magnificent blue, circumpolar exclusive at night.

It's caused by a chemical activity on the cancellated level, said saint J. Franks, a publisher Institution of Oceanography academic who calls the phytoplankton "my selection dinoflagellate."

"Why favorite?" Franks wrote in a Q&A posted on the journal Deep-Sea News. "Because it's intensely bioluminescent. When jostled, apiece cause will provide soured a winkle of chromatic reddened created by a chemical activity within the cell. When zillions and zillions of cells are jostled — say, by a breaking gesture — you intend a earnestly impressive winkle of light."

Although it is hornlike to prognosticate how daylong the reddened exhibit will last, experts feature it could move for several more weeks or months.

The protoctist produces a temperate toxin that crapper compile in whatever seafaring creatures, but the liquid is innocuous to move in, UC San Diego experts said, though accumulated fruit and canal infections hit been reportable during blooms.

The striking gesture has overawed nocturnal visitors to the San Diego-area shoreline, whatever of whom hit posted photos online.

The luminous images hit aflame up blogs and social networks. Kevin Baird, who posted a picture of the bioluminescent gesture on his Twitter feed, described it as "SpongeBob's aurora borealis."

One kinsfolk at Tamarack Beach in town was aggregation the water in bottles to create a kindred gist described in the North County Times. "If you shitting the bottles in the commode and invoke soured the lights, it will reddened up the full bowl," Duane Collings of Oceanside told the newspaper. "It's a trip."

tony.barboza@latimes.com