UBC researchers find key microbial indicator of ocean health By WEBNEWSWIRE.COMOctober 25, 2009 - 01:00 Microbes specialize in metabolic innovation and many can use alternatives to oxygen, including nitrates, sulfates and metals, breathing these compounds instead of oxygen. These adaptations likely enable them to thrive in dead zones where their combined metabolic activity influences nutrient [...]
A&M researchers to study Gulf dead zone By Greg Barr , Senior Reporter, Houston Business JournalThursday, October 22, 2009, 1:07pm CDTDead zones, or hypoxia, occur when oxygen in water drops below 2 milligrams per liter. Severe hypoxia levels can result in fish kills and can affect the Gulf fishing industry. While the 2008 dead zone [...]
'Dead-zone' microbe measures ocean health By CBC News Thursday, October 22, 2009 | 2:58 PM, Canadian Broadcast Corporation Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the U.S. Department of Energy say the microbe, called SUP05, is the most abundant organism in these oxygen-minimum zones and plays an important role in their ecosystems. Saanich Inlet [...]
As oceans fall ill, Washington bureaucrats squabble By LES BLUMENTHAL, McClatchy NewspapersSunday, 11.08.09 , Miami HeraldEvery summer a dead zone of oxygen-depleted water the size of Massachusetts forms in the Gulf of Mexico; others have been found off Oregon and in the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Erie, and the Baltic and Black seas. Some studies indicate [...]
Ocean 'dead zones' hard to predict By ERIC BERGER , HOUSTON CHRONICLENov. 6, 2009, 10:25PM Scientist stymied when trying to forecast size and severity Most dead zones, including the large recurring one in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast, are produced largely by fertilizer runoffs carried by rivers into the ocean. [...]
Mississippi diary: Dead zone By Nick ClarkNovember 2nd, 2009, AMERICAS BLOGPhoto by Getty Images Less than 70 km from the Gulf of Mexico, huge industrial plants flank the banks of the Mississippi, making use of its water. Combine this with the run-off from farmers’ fields and you get perilous cocktail. The Mississippi River helped build [...]
Mississippi diary: Operation Cajun By Nick Clark October 29th, 2009, Americas Share Photo by Marion Post Wolcott/Library Of Congress/Getty Images The lay of the land in Louisiana's south is very different these days. The French dialect once dominant here - less than a century ago - is almost gone. And its 7,000-year-old coastline is rapidly [...]
LUMCON gets $4 million for dead-zone research By Nikki Buskey , Staff WriterSaturday, October 31, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.The LUMCON marine-research center in Cocodrie has been awarded the money as part of a $12 million, five-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to better understand the dead zone, an area of low-to-no oxygen [...]
Ocean task force meeting in New Orleans Monday to discuss new policy By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune October 16, 2009, 5:57PMSeveral senior environmental officials with the Obama administration will be in New Orleans Monday to discuss a wide-ranging new ocean policy that could eventually lead to new laws governing everything from pollution to sustainable fisheries [...]
U.N. Panel Finds Environmental Assessments of Biofuels Lacking By BEN GEMAN of Green WireOctober 16, 2009 , New York Times The U.N. Environment Programme's report (pdf) concludes that so-called lifecycle assessments must go beyond calculating greenhouse gas emissions and consider how agricultural production of feedstocks affects the acidification and nutrient loading of waterways. "The available [...]
