Researchers have dyed some seawater off the coast pink “in the name of science,” the University of California said.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego and University of Washington conducted an experiment near Torrey Pines “to study how small freshwater outflows interact with the surf zone,” according to a news release.

The first batch of the environmentally safe pink dye was released on Jan. 20 where fresh water met the sea, the university said. The remaining two releases are scheduled for the end of this month and the beginning of February.

The dye was released during low tide, when the ocean’s level drops, the release said. Once released, the dye is visible “to the naked eye within hours” and “small traces can be detected by instruments within about 24 hours.”

The project “Plains in coastal conditions” is aimed at analyze and further understand “Interaction between the currents of small rivers and the surf zone”, according to the project’s website.

“I’m excited because this research hasn’t been done before and it’s a really unique experiment,” Scripps coastal oceanographer Sarah Giddings, who is leading the PiNC study, said in a release. “We’re bringing together a lot of different people with different backgrounds, so I think it’s going to have really great results and impact. We will combine the results of this experiment with older field studies and computer models that will allow us to make progress in understanding how these plumes spread.”

The bright pink water will be tracked by researchers using “drones, sensors attached to poles in the sand at the estuary and surf zone, and a jet ski” with an attached device that measures the amount of light given off by the dye, officials said. .

The researchers said that “the results of this study will provide important data for quantifying the distribution of sediments, pollutants, larvae and other important materials in the coastal environment.”

Scripps oceanographers have conducted a similar experiment in the past.

In 2015, the pink dye was used in an international study that tracked how pollution moves through beach waters near the U.S.-Mexico border, officials said.

Torrey Pines is located about 15 miles northwest of downtown San Diego.