Page 10 - Hypoxia Task Force News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Scientists prepare to collect near-bottom water aboard the R/V Pelican to verify oxygen measurements used to determine the size of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. (NOAA/LUMCON/LSU) A "dead zone," or an area of low to no oxygen, in the Gulf of Mexico has grown larger than Connecticut, creating an uninhabitable environment for some commercial marine life, and scientists are saying the sparse amount of tropical activity has played a role. An...

Scientists prepare to collect near-bottom water aboard the R/V Pelican to verify oxygen measurements used to determine the size of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. (NOAA/LUMCON/LSU) A "dead zone," or an area of low to no oxygen, in the Gulf of Mexico has grown larger than Connecticut, creating an uninhabitable environment for some commercial marine life, and scientists are saying the sparse amount of tropical activity has played a role. An...

The zone this year is about 6,334 square miles, an area slightly larger than the state of Connecticut. A dead zone occurs at the bottom of a body of water when there isn't enough oxygen in the water to support marine life. This summer's dead zone is about three times times larger than the goal a task force of state and federal agencies set in 2001. The annual Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" – a region of oxygen-depleted water off the Louisiana and Texas coasts that's harmful to sea life – is larger-than-average this summer, federal scientists from NOAA announced in a report released Tuesday.

Researchers find that this year’s Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone is larger than expected. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is bigger this summer than scientists had forecasted. Researchers have just returned from their annual trip to the mouth of the Mississippi River and say extra runoff is the reason. The dead zone is a huge hypoxic area where excess nitrogen, largely from fertilizer used on farms in the Midwest, causes algal blooms that deplete the water of oxygen, which kills plants and animals or causes them to flee. The average hypoxic zone over the past five years is 5,380 square miles...

University of Michigan The Mississippi River near Vicksburg, looking Northeast at the Interstate 20 bridge, the confluence of the Yazoo River is in the foreground. The photo was taken by a drone flown by Jim Alvis and Mike Manning of the U.S. Geological Survey in the summer of 2016. Image credit: USGS A team of scientists including a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist is forecasting this summer’s Gulf of Mexico hypoxic area or “dead zone,” an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and other marine life, to be approximately 4,880 square miles, a bit smaller than the state of C...