Huge Dead Zone is Predicted This Year

Will the future mean a shortage of fish? (NOTE: You can save $3 on our beautiful crop circle calendar if you use coupon 2012 by September 23). Oceanographers have returned from a trip to examine the scope and size of this year’s "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and have measured it currently to be about 3,300 square miles, or about the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Some researchers anticipate it becoming much larger.

Steve DiMarco journeyed more than 1,400 miles throughout the Gulf over a five-day period. The size of the dead zone off coastal Louisiana has been routinely monitored for about 25 years, and previous research has shown that nitrogen levels in the Gulf related to human activities (run off from nitrogen fertilizer used on coastal farms) have tripled over the past 50 years. During the past five years, the dead zone has averaged about 5,800 square miles and has been predicted to exceed 9,400 square miles this year, which would make it one of the largest ever recorded.

Dead zones occur when oxygen levels in seawater drop to dangerously low levels, and severe hypoxia can potentially result in fish kills and harm marine life. Because of record amounts of water flowing from the Mississippi River into the Gulf, there is keen interest in the dead zone areas this year, and the size of this year’s dead zone could still change because large amounts of water are still flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River.

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