Oceanologists have discovered a giant "dead zone" off the coast of the United States

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Oxygen-depleted areas of the oceans, known as death zones, result from water pollution from fertilizers and industrial waste. The ingress of nitrates and other compounds into rivers and then into the coastal areas of the sea leads to rapid reproduction of unicellular algae. As they decompose, the oxygen level in the water drops. Most animals do not survive in such conditions.

In recent years, ecologists and oceanologists have found more and more hints that global warming is accelerating the growth of such "dead spots", especially in tropical and equatorial zones. Today, a similar fate befell about seven percent of the oceans and seas of the Earth.

One of the largest zones of this kind, says Nancy Rabalais of the University of Louisiana, is located in the northern Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Texas and Louisiana.

As Rabalaet and her colleagues discovered, this “blind spot” has grown dramatically in recent years - it has roughly tripled in size and now covers an area the size of Israel, Wales or any other small country in the world. Now the "spot" occupies a solid second place among the "dead zones", second only to the bottom of the Arabian Sea.

Unlike many other spots that have arisen as a result of warming waters, weakening or strengthening of currents and other consequences of global warming, man is to blame for the birth of this "death zone".

The waters of the Mississippi and other rivers flowing into the Gulf of Mexico contain a huge amount of fertilizers and organic waste, rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and other important nutrients. When they enter the Atlantic, they cause a violent bloom of algae, which leads to the same consequences as the formation of natural "dead zones".

The rapid growth of this "spot", according to scientists, indicates that farmers and agricultural companies are using more and more fertilizers in the fields, despite attempts by regulators to restrict their use. If this trend continues in the future, the boundaries of the death zone will continue to grow rapidly.