This article discusses the danger of "dead zones" being created off the Gulf Coast. This areas lack oxygen in the water due to fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi River. The nitrogen in fertilizer creates large plankton blooms that consume all the oxygen creating what is called hypoxia. This causes huge amounts of death called fish-kills. Small microbe are able to consume the nitrate to nitrogen gas and they can do this without the help of oxygen. However, this nitrate is from ammonium in nitrification which requires oxygen. These dead zones are harmful and very difficult to reverse.
NOS Themes
Role of Credibility - This article is written by Robinson Fulwieler, a biology professor from Boston University
Role of Motivation - The writer is currently researching to find a way to efficiently reverse these dead zones.
Chris Rose
The Mississippi River runoff has been a huge problem for the river as well as the gulf. It's very unfortunate that little is currently being done in support of this. Hopefully Professor Fulwieler and other biologists will be able to come up with a reasonable solution to fix the lack of oxygen. This could spread in the future and affect an even larger area if nothing is done.
ReplyDeleteIn the zoo project we did a few weeks ago, my group studied the affect of water pollution on local ecosystems, and this was on of examples we found for a troubled spot, very interesting! As I have commented in other posts, I enjoy recreational SCUBA diving, so anything affecting our beautiful waters really saddens me. Just off the coast of Texas and Luisiana, is one of the US's most popular coral reefs, the Flower Garden Reefs. If interested, you can look up pictures, but take it from me, the Flower Garden Reefs are truly spectacular. It would be a huge loss to all if these reefs were bleached and died from such a silly, human thing as fertilizer run off.
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