Our old planet has started another chapter.....

NEWPORT, Ore. — His hand on a toggle switch and his eyes on a computer screen, Oregon State University graduate student Anthony Kirincich "flew" an array of scientific instruments up and down through the waters of the Pacific, searching for the low levels of oxygen that mark the return of the Dead Zone.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002003218_oceans12m.html

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

I think the newspaper somewhat exaggerates the anthropogenicity of "dead Zones". There's a river of scientific research on the subject but not an awful lot of rigorous, year-round, detailed mapping of river outflows. Even so, that's a pretty well-written article.

The major river's estuaries that flow from developed farmland and urban areas certainly have more frequently observed plumes of anoxia. My favorite is the Mississippi River, whil has a year-round dead zone that varies in size from a few cubic miles to larger than several New England states.

Once I was on a beach in LA during a "jubilee". This occurs when the anoxic water squeezes large fish closer and closer to shore until they actually get in the surf for oxygen. On a stretch of beach perhaps 2 miles long I saw several hundred redfish, flounder, shark, mackeral, rays, cobia, and rafts of shrimp. The fish were often on the 20# to 50# range. A man with a bat and a big sack wouldv'e cleaned-up.

Where's KV to tell us it's W's fault.

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