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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (4896)	2/11/2009 2:19:53 PM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

"Dead zones" are caused by too much plankton in an area. Phyto-plankton lives near the surface where it can get light. It takes in CO2 and give off oxygen. But when plankton dies, it sinks. In deep waters, the dead plankton is eaten by bacteria, which take in oxygen and give off CO2. There's nothing in deep waters that produce oxygen, the life there only uses up oxygen. So the only oxygen is that which gets there by circulation of ocean waters. When too much plankton sinks into the depths, it causes bacteria to grow so much they use up all the oxygen there. When that happens everything there dies, bacteria, fish, everything. And the bodies of everything dead settles on the bottom, doesn't rot, eventually over geologic time gets buried and when buried deep enough the pressure and heat create oil and natural gas ... depending on how deep it gets buried. So you can see dead zones are not a new thing. And dead zones are not caused by a decrease in plankton.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (4896)	2/11/2009 6:22:39 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

And why have ocean nutrients been decreasing? And how do we stop that decrease? What is causing the dead zones? Some have theorized that mankind, via soil conservation efforts, have interdicted the natural wind born dust clouds. This would apply to areas that are far away from a land area. However, Brumar is also correct that algae can be fed by agricultural fertilizer run-off from rivers and literally kill an area. But these kinds of algae are not the preferred forms, such as Diatoms. Diatoms have a hard shell, which adds the necessary weight to drag the dead algae to the ocean bottom, whereas non-shell algae will float on the surface and decay, releasing methane and depleting available oxygen. It's not the growth of the algae, but it's decay that depletes the oxygen, which is why it's so important to foster the ocean's biological pump and sequester the CO2 they've captured. That's why it's been recommended that when OF is attempted, it should be a mixture of both Iron and Silica, which would foster the growth of Diatoms and other frustule forming algae. Hawk