Gulf of Mexico mystery...

[Pepperbelly]

-snip-

Dive instructor Michael Miller took underwater video to try to figure out the mystery.

"Right now, anywhere we go from shore to 20 miles offshore, from Sarasota to Tarpon Springs, we can't find a single creature alive on the bottom right now," said Miller.

Miller says he's never seen such death and devastation under water in his 20 years of diving.



http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2005/8/10/112685.html

[Quakerfriend]

1. OMG! This is so sad.

The last time I visited the Gulf was in 1981.

My fondest memory was that you could see fish jumping out of the water everywhere in the beautiful blue-green water.

[rodeodance]

3. i thought it has been a 'dead zone' for decades. Seems to be getting

larger.

[izzie]

2. Is the Navy testing something new?

Just asking and I do not hate the USA for just asking.

[rodeodance]

5. lot of it is cause of the washdown from poluted Mississippi River.

[Ian David]

7. Pollution. Global warming. Pesticide and fertilizer run-off. Over-fishing.

No "Experimental Underwater Death Ray" required.

[wakeme2008]

4. Red Tide just hit and

is gone but the dead fish remain.

[izzie]

8. That sounds like it is right and from all those Southern states

Interesting I once read that the land is places like China were better for growing than the US as they had never used such things on their land that we had used and ours land is poor after 300 years and China has been farming their for about 4000 years. I wonder if that is true.

[whistle]

6. How much has off-shore oil drilling in the Gulf increased in the.....

...last five years?

Also, isn't Sarasota the home of a major nuclear bomb facility that manufactures replacement triggers for nuclear bombs among other lethal and toxic products for the military?

[Divernan]

9. And tourists are still swimming in this muck? At least no sharks.

A further quote from the article:

"All the coral, all the sponges, all the crabs, not a single
living thing, all the starfish, all the brittle stars, everything's
dead."

I've seen a few very small "dead zones" like this in the Bahamas, at about 40-60 feet depths. This is not a result of overfishing - I've seen those areas too and they still have living coral reefs. These dead zones are littered with dead coral and are literally a gray-brown color. Fish stay out of the areas because there's nothing to eat - the food chain is gone. Water temps were very high there - 89 degrees - and I thought that was what had killed the coral. But I'm no marine biologist.

Back at the Florida coast, Jeb doesn't give a shit about the environment except to the extent it impacts tourism.
I was planning a dive trip to the area around Venice, Florida, on the Gulf side, where there are some large prehistoric (megalodon) shark teeth to be found. But I'll pass on that and head on down to the Keys.

[Desertrose]

10. damn...this is not good.

So sad...big chunks of dead areas in the earth is NOT a good thing.

we sure have screwed up our part of the world...too bad its all connected and sooner or later affects everyone.

:cry:

Hope this area can come back from this...

[Pepperbelly]

11. It does seem to coincide with the latest red tide ...

Seems likely. Lab results will tell for certain but it seems like the best bet to me.

[ixion]

12. dead fish have been washing up on the shores here for the past 10 weeks

literally.

I came back from a business trip around the first week in June and that's when this red tide hit.

It's been here ever since.

[SteppingRazor]

13. This has been around for a couple decades in the Gulf

This "dead zone" -- hypoxia, by its scientific name -- has been observed in the Gulf sine the mid-1980s. Nothing new.

http://www.nos.noaa.gov/products/pubs_hypox.html

The above link is an exhaustive account of the problem, for those interested in it.

The hypoxia does some to be growing every year, but at a slow rate. It's likely the result of polluted freshwater entering the Gulf from the Delta. It's also predicted to level off at some point -- in other words, it can't keep growing for ever, this is not the end of the ocean. It's still very troubling, though.