Dead zone may 2010. It is now bigger.

The “Dead Zone”, the low-oxygen area in the Gulf of Mexico, which has been recorded this year, might just be the largest on record and it overlaps areas which were affected by the oil spill courtesy of our Eco-friendly oil conglomerate BP.

The areas afflicted with low levels of oxygen, also known as hypoxia, cover an area estimated to be over 7,000 square miles of the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and extended as far as to actually enter Texas waters. This astonishing discovery was made by researchers at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, after performing a survey of the waters.

The area covered is expected to have included a section off of Galveston, Texas, as well, however poor weather conditions forced the researchers to cut their surveying trip short.

“The total area probably would have been the largest if we had enough time to completely map the western part,” said the consortium’s executive director, Nancy Rabalais.

The largest dead zone that was ever measured in a survey, which started on a regular basis in 1985, was slightly more than 8,000 square miles, and was recorded in 2001.

This annual summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is generally attributed to chemicals used by farmers, and which make their way to the Gulf by means of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers.
The phosphorous and nitrogen contained in agricultural runoffs provide a food source which allows algae to prosper in the Gulf.

When bits of algae die off, or are excreted by sea animals which eat them settle onto the bottom of the water, they decompose and the bacteria consume the oxygen in the water.

The end result, the scientists explained, is that this causes oxygen depletion in the water, which forces many marine animals including fish, shrimp and crabs to either vacate their homes, or suffocate.

The marine life which makes its home in the sediments can survive with relatively little oxygen, however they will begin to die off as the oxygen level approaches zero.

To be considered as part of this “Dead Zone”, the oxygen levels in bottom waters in the Gulf of Mexico need to be at a level of 2 parts per million or less.

By the end of July this year, large areas of the norther part of the Gulf of Mexico had already reached that level, including one part close to Galveston Bay.

The area which the BP oil spill overlaps in some areas in the “Dead Zone”, Rabalais explained, and microbes which would be used to help clean up the spill can deplete oxygen levels in the water.

Be that as it may, scientists could not say that there is a definite link between the devastating oil spill, and the size of the “Dead Zone”.

“It would be difficult to link conditions seen this summer with oil from the BP spill in either a positive or negative way,” Rabalais explained.