The Mystery of Oregon's 'Dead Zone'

Roland Piquepaille writes "The area off Cape Perpetua on the central Oregon coast is now a gigantic crab and fish graveyard. It was first discovered in 2002, but according to the Christian Science Monitor, researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have taken a close-up look into this coastal dead zone. And things are getting worse. A few weeks ago, the researchers measured the level of dissolved oxygen in this part of the ocean. They found that levels were 10 to 30 times lower than normal, down to 0.5 milliliters per liter, a characteristic of hypoxia. And because they have no explanations about this phenomenon, they're even envisioning a total absence of oxygen, or anoxia. Read more for additional details and pictures about this mystery."

Comments

It is the same with the Baltic sea.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Baltic sea also has the same issue. There are so many pollotants dumped into the sea than in couple tens of years we have totally dead sea in our hands.

Re:It is the same with the Baltic sea.

[Yazeran]

Yes, but in the case of the Baltic, there is a natural bias towards a no-oxygen situation.

In the baltic we have a higher salt concentration in the bottom parts than nearer the surface (due to water runoff through all the rivers which empty out i the baltic). At the same time, the mouth of the baltic (e.g. the Danish straits) are shallow, usually only alloowing te surface water to freely exchange with the North sea (and hence the Atlantic). In most cases there is a weak outgowing current in the danish straits and only in special weather situations do salt and oxygen containing water enter the baltic.
The weather situations which may pump salt and oxygen into the baltic is large storms from the right direction and i recal readig that it is only about once every 2-3 years that that happens that significant amounts of salt water enters the deep parts of the baltic.

This phenomena (heavy salt rich water at the bottom, salt poor water at the surface) is also the same which makes the danish fjords vulnarable to hypoxia or anoxia (and incidently makes them nearly ideal for small submarines to operate in as a surface ship has no chance of hearing them through the thermo/hyalocline before they are close enough to launch torpedoes, which was the reason why the soviets took the danish navy serious durring the cold war).

There is alos other places where the geometry of the water basin results in natural anoxia (the black sea is i believe the largest). Similarly, in the geologic past, large costal water basins have been anoxic (as there is now oil there), so anoxic conditions is not by themselves some man made phenomena. It may be man made in the case in Oregon and in the case of the baltic, it surely does not help dumping all the polution from the rivers..

Yours Yazeran

Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer.

Oh Come On

[viewtouch]

Informative, 5 ?

I live real close to this area, am on vacation in Lincoln City at the moment, and I'd like to say that when they say they have no explanations about this phenomenon you should not take that to mean that the annual upwelling of cold water from the bottom just off the continental shelf here is either news to anybody here or is a satisfactory explanation for what is going on here.

By the way, the part about the wind generating these currents, or currents anywhere, is wrong. Currents are generated by a combination of the earth's rotation, the uneven solar heating of the earth's surface and the underwater topologies of the world's oceans. Wind is better thought of as the atmospheric currents and the ocean current patterns clearly do NOT overlap the atmospheric currents.

OK, now, with that out of the way, the point is, nobody yet knows why everything is dead out there. Not you, Not Google, Not me, Not anybody - yet.

methane hydrates

[Anonymous Coward]

They just recently found out that high concentrates of methane hydrates are found in much shallower waters near there. That and the recent increase in undersea vulcanism might have something to do with it (my theory to be cussed or discussed). The shaking might be disturbing the hydrates, releasing even just slightly more gas, it takes cold plus pressure to keep it locked up as a hydrate. I'll ask the chemist geeks here, how dissolvable that methane is if it gets released like that, and what might happen to the oxygen levels in the nearby seawater.

Re:No explanation?

[Max Threshold]

Sadly, many (if not most) professional scientists these days are nothing but bumbling idiots chasing after research grants, repeating one another's experiments and research not for verification, but to pass them off as original.

In an environment of such poor scientific integrity, there's nothing wrong with a layperson hitting the books and forming their own theories. They're probably just as good as any so-called expert's.