Dead zones - Is there a cure? Do they really suffocate the ocean?

 

We used lots of informational websites on dead zones including many past studies and experiments.  

What is a dead zone?

Dead zones are low-oxygen, or hypoxic, areas in our earth’s oceans or lakes. Many organisms or animals can’t live in such low-oxygen places, so they either die or move out of that area, that’s why they are called dead zones.

 

how does a helthy marine ecosystem work?

In places with sunlight, there is usually a soft streak of algae on the top. Shallow ends should have seagrass and seaweed. A distance away from shore, fish appear. These organisms make the food chain. The plants use photosynthesis to create nutrients. That’s when plants take in oxygen, water and sunlight to create food/nutrients. In places without sunlight, there must be a healthy top layer of the ocean because some of the animals that are a part of the food chain eat leftovers from the top, also known as marine snow. Animal’s can thrive but only when their ecosystem is healthy.

how do dead zones occur?

Dead zones occur because of eutrophication. This then causes too many nutrients, often phosphorus and nitrogen. When too many nutrients appear, blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria grows out of hand harming the environment. Dead zones can, but rarely, occur naturally. Scientist’s studies show that it’s mainly caused by human activity, causing pollution and climate change

 

what does phosphorus and nitrogen have to do with dead zones? what are they?

the two main nutrients causing dead zones are phosphorus and nitrogen. Phosphorus naturally occurs as a mineral and can occur in foods and lots of supplements. It helps keep your body healthy, especially your bones, teeth and *cell membrane.**cell membrane are found in all cells and separates the interior cell from the exterior environment* nitrogen is a chemical and is one of the most common ones. It is tasteless, odorless and colorless. Nitrogen is a huge part of all living matter.

PHOSPHORUS AND NITROGEN ARE THE TWO MAIN NUTRIENTS FOUND IN CYANOBACTERIA, A CAUSE FOR DEAD ZONES.  

 

climate change and pollution - what really are they?

Climate change refers to long-term shifts and changes in weather and temperature. Natural shifts can happen but scientists state that climate change was mainly caused by human activity since the 1800’s

Some causes:

Burning fossil fuels, turning forests into agricultural fields, Volcanic activity, solar output and change in the earth’s rotation around the sun.

-When too much algae forms, it blocks off sunlight, killing the plants that feed the other aquatic animals. To decompose the dead plants, it uses the already depleted oxygen, forming what we call a dead zone. 

(cc) On the other hand, Pollution is the introduction of harmful materials into our earth. They are called pollutants. They can be natural like volcanic ash but it is mainly caused by humans. WHO warns that air pollution causes 7 million premature deaths per year.

 

 

What is eutrophication and what causes it?

Eutrophication is a process that results in accumulation of nutrients in lakes or other bodies of water. When eutrophication happens, all the extra and unneeded nutrients not only enter our water, but also our soil and air. Different places on our earth emit different amounts of these nutrients. In developed countries like the United States or European Union, people use a lot of animal manure and commercial fertilizers for agriculture, which is the main cause for eutrophication. Runoff from large agriculture fields can go into creeks, bays or other bodies of water because of rain or irrigation practices, the practice of putting controlled amounts of water to help grow crops, plants and lawns.Atmospheric sources are also a cause for eutrophication in some places around the world. Fossil fuels and fertilizers also release great amounts of nitrogen into our environment. This atmospheric nitrogen is then released through the water cycle-Snow and water.

 

What is phytoplankton and what does it have to do with dead zones?

Phytoplankton are very small marine creatures that are at the base of a marine animal’s food web. When phytoplankton sinks, it is decomposed because of bacteria, and even though oxygen can now flow freely, the phytoplankton takes up basically all of it. This then causes the lack of oxygen, therefore leading into a dead zone. Phytoplankton basically deletes the oxygen supply that the environment of that part of the body of water needs.

 

Why are dead zones a threat?

Dead zones are a serious threat scientists are having many problems with. Scientists warn that dead zones have quadrupled since 1950 and the lack of oxygen has multiplied by ten times. As we know, dead zones have little to no oxygen, meaning that many aquatic creatures and vegetation will soon all go either endangered or extinct, posing a big threat to everyone and everything. Fish, crabs, oysters and all sea life literally suffocate in these areas. Dead zones even contribute to diseases and sicknesses. In a dead zone, humans can only live 16-20 hours.

 

Can anything make dead zones worse?

Hot temperatures can break up dead zones by warming a layer of surface water that locks colder and denser water below where oxygen can’t mix in with the water. This makes dead zones go deeper and spread.

 

What do dead zones look like?

Under the water you could see dead coral which is usually brown and kind of gray. Dead zones CAN have an oddly big amount of algae sitting on the top of the water. If a dead zone does get too big though, when it’s done surrounding the whole body of water, it turns into a giant oceanic desert. Oceanic deserts are areas of an ocean, the whole body of water in our case, which does not get enough water to stay as one.

 

How big are dead zones?

Scientists can test how big a dead zone is by taking water samples.Dead zones can grow up to the size of New Jersey (22,591.38 km squared) or bigger. in 2004, there was a one square mile big dead zone.

 

How long do dead zones last?

Temporary dead zones are hypoxic regions that last for hours or days. Seasonal dead zones occur every year during the warm months of summer. Some dead zones are permanent because they are in deeper water which makes them unable to recover. On March 23rd scientists discovered that it would take at least 30 years for a dead zone to recover and turn back to normal, even if the nitrogen runoff was completely gone.

 

Can we prevent or help prevent dead zones?

Dead zones fortunately, can be prevented. There aren’t MANY ways to prevent them but these small acts can go a long way for every living species and can almost save our planet earth. You can try:

-Nutrient management: There are many different types of fertilizers, timings and ways people give nutrients to crops, these can all affect our environment. Being able to put in an almost perfect amount of nutrients into plants in a better way can help stop excess nutrients from flowing into streams or other bodies of water.

-cover crops: There is a certain plant that you can plant called a cover crop that recycles nutrients that our earth does not want or need.

-Buffers: by planting different things like trees, grass and shrubs around fields can help with the filtration of extra nutrients before they reach a body of water.

Conservation tillage: We can prevent nutrient runoff by having soil erosion. To do this, we would want to reduce how often fields are tilled. Tilling means to prepare fields for growing crops.*

-Manage livestock waste: Keeping animal manure away from bodies of water is something that would have a big impact on the earth. Animal manure is mostly made up of nitrogen and phosphorus, the two main excess nutrients for dead zones. Animal manure is 60-85% phosphorus and 70-80% nitrogen.

-Drainage water management: Reducing loading drainage from agricultural fields can also help nutrient runoff.

Although there thankfully are ways to prevent dead zones, if we don’t take action soon, the future of our marine ecosystem may be dead in the water.

Scientists have only found 13 dead zones in the world which had been recovering.

What scientists can detect about dead zones and how

Scientists at MSU found a way to detect the length and effect of a dead zone called the “bird’s-eye-method”. Scientists can detect that there is a dead zone in the area because of the low oxygen rate. Scientists are concerned about the area which is being damaged by human activity. It is important for scientists to continue to study and watch over dead zones because it is important to keep them maintained and away from expanding into larger species, this is because dead zones are able to kill any living thing because there is basically no oxygen at all.

 

 

Dead zones around the world

The first dead zone was found on the East coast of the United States, in Chesapeake Bay. It was identified in the 1970s. The largest dead zone found was in the Gulf of Oman in the Arabian Sea. It stretched 63,700 square miles. The second largest dead zone was found in the Gulf of Mexico in the United States, stretching 6,000 square miles in size. Most dead zones are found in the Eastern coasts of the United States, and coastlines of Japan, Korean peninsula and Baltic states. Before, there were only 10 dead zones officially identified, but the numbers only rise, now being at least 700. This means numbers of dead zones will keep on rising.

 

Why are oceans important?

Oceans or Marine Biomes cover 72% of our world. There are four MAIN oceans-Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic and Indian, but one “newly” claimed ocean is the Southern ocean. It is claimed that the United States was the first to recognize it as an Ocean.

Oceans provide jobs, transportation and food. Despite the fact of how oceans provide for humans, there is another very important trait of an ocean. An ocean regulates the climate. According to oceanexplorer.gov, an ocean acts as a conveyor belt, transporting warm waters to the equator. A common myth is that trees produce most of the oxygen in our atmosphere, but the truth is, oceans do. Scientists discovered that oceans produce more than half of our air.

Sylvia Earle once stated, “ Our actions over the next ten years will determine the state of the ocean in 10,000 years.”

 

 

How will it affect our daily lives?

Even if we may not notice the effects of it in OUR daily life, agricultural farmers in the United States have to pay an average of 82 million dollars because of dead zones.

If dead zones become too invasive, they will affect us by having less transportation and food. If you were to search up a picture of a dead zone, it would be a tragic sight. There would be millions and millions of fish, dead, lying helplessly on the shore, or even in the non-existing water. Each year, we lose over 83,000 tons of fish, excluding other aquatic animals, in JUST Chesapeake bay. In the Gulf of Mexico, we lose over 235,000 tons of fish alone.

 

 

 

Conclusion 1: Is there a cure?

In conclusion, dead zones can be recovered but easily come back because of how much nutrient runoff is happening in our world Only a few dead zones have recovered fully and all the others went back to a sickness for the ocean. To recap everything to that question, dead zones can recover but are very hard and take a very long time, even if the causes were completely gone.

conclusion 2: Is pumping oxygen an option?

Pumping LIQUID oxygen into dead zones is a safe way to recover dead zones, It would cost too much money and use too much time. One barge of liquid oxygen only covers a kilometer or just a bit more that’s why we don’t. Now we must think of or invent new ways to save our slowly dying boundless world of creatures, vegetation and water.

 

1. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/dead-zone/
2. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/deadzone.html
3. https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/nutrients-and-eutrophication#:~:text=Eutrophication%20is%20a%20natural%20process,and%20clogging%20water%2Dintake%20pipes.
4. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/deadzone.html#:~:text=Dead%20zones%20occur%20in%20coastal,the%20northern%20Gulf%20of%20Mexico.
5. https://www.cbf.org/issues/dead-zones/index.html#:~:text=Dead%20zones%20are%20areas%20in,literally%20suffocate%20in%20these%20zones.
6. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/phyto.html
7. https://www.vims.edu/research/topics/dead_zones/formation/index.php#:~:text=Dead%20zones%20begin%20to%20form,the%20burning%20of%20fossil%20fuels.
8. https://innovationcenter.msu.edu/msu-scientists-create-new-method-to-detect-dead-zones-in-coastal-oceans/
9. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/deadzone.html#:~:text=Less%20oxygen%20dissolved%20in%20the,become%2C%20essentially%2C%20biological%20deserts.
10. https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/bcnews/science-tech-and-health/earth-environment-and-sustainability/the-origins-of-ocean-dead-zones.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20order%20
11. https://www.aaas.org/news/marine-dead-zones-gulf-mexico-are-expected-last-decades#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20in%20the,Gulf%20of%20Mexico%20for%20decades.
12. https://www.thoughtco.com/dead-zones-4164335#:~:text=Types%20of%20Dead%20Zones&text=Permanent%20dead%20zones%20occur%20in,year%20during%20the%20warm%20
13. https://www.aaas.org/news/marine-dead-zones-gulf-mexico-are-expected-last-decades#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20in%20the,the%20dead%20zone%20to%20recover.
14. https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/food_supply/student_materials/1114#:~:text=Better%20management%20of%20nutrient%20application,nutrients%20out%20of%20surface%20waterways.
15. https://ag.umass.edu/crops-dairy-livestock-equine/fact-sheets/manure-nutrient-resource#:~:text=Manure%20is%20rich%20in%20nutrients,is%20excreted%20in%20the%20manure.
16. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/ocean/
17. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/why-care-about-ocean.html#:~:text=Climate%20regulation%3A%20Covering%2070%20percent,some%20form%20of%20marine%20transportation.
18. https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/facts/climate.html#:~:text=Ocean%20currents%20act%20much%20like,solar%20radiation%20reaching%20Earth's%20surface.
19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovl_XbgmCbw
20.  
21. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/howmanyoceans.html#:~:text=Historically%2C%20there%20are%20four%20named,the%20'newest'%20named%20ocean.
22. https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/science/environmental-science/the-5-vertical-zones-of-the-oceans-water-column-284232/
23.  
24. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change
25. https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Cell-Membrane
26. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/causes.htm
27. https://www.britannica.com/science/nitrogen
28. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/pollution/
29. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oceanic-dead-zones-spread/
30. https://archive.org/details/89-357-41l

Thank you to the teachers who were the reason we were able to experience a fun event like this. Thank you to my judges who opened my eyes to learning. Thank you to my parents who printed everything I needed. Thank you for my sister who helped me through this whole thing. Early thank you to my other judges who I'm going to meet in april. We thank the websites that helped us with our research.