Dead Zones: Devil in the Deep Blue Sea

[xchrom]

http://www.livescience.com/47274-dead-zones-in-united-states.html

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NASA's Terra satellite captured this natural-color image of phytoplankton blooms on May 4, 2013, in France's Bay of Biscay.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

A stretch of the Gulf of Mexico spanning more than 5,000 square miles along the Louisiana coast is nearly devoid of marine life this summer, according to a study from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium released this week. Caused largely by nutrient runoff from farm fertilizer, this oxygen-deprived "dead zone" is approximately the size of Connecticut. Although slightly smaller than last summer's edition, the Gulf dead zone is still touted by some as the largest in the United States and costs $82 million annually in diminished tourism and fishing yield.

Which makes you wonder…



How many other dead zones are out there?

There are probably around 200 dead zones in U.S. waters, alone. After reviewing the academic literature on "hypoxic zones" in 2012, Robert Diaz, professor emeritus at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, identified 166 reports of dead zones in the country. Coastal waters contain the vast majority, though some exist in inland waterways. A handful of the 166 dead zones have since bounced back through improved management of sewage and agricultural runoff, but as fertilizer use and factory farming increase, the United States is creating dead zones faster than nature can recover.

There are more than 400 known dead zones worldwide, covering about 1 percent of the area along the continental shelves. That number is almost certainly a vast undercount, however, since researchers have yet to adequately study large parts of Africa, South America and Asia. Diaz estimates that a more accurate count is 1,000-plus dead zones, globally.

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick.....

[2naSalit]

2. Kick-tick-tick-tick

won't be long and those dead zones will overwhelm the land as well.