Oil Plume Dead Zones Likely to Last 2 Years

Photo © Julia Whitty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A new simulation of oil and methane leaked into the Gulf of Mexico suggests that deep hypoxic zones, also known as dead zones, could form near the source of the pollution. The research is detailed in a scientific paper in press with Geophysical Research Letters. Dead zones occur where oxygen levels have dropped blow the threshold to support most marine life.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Princeton University investigated five scenarios of oil and methane plumes at different depths and incorporated an estimated flow rate from the Deepwater Horizon spill. The simulations reveal that ocean hypoxia or toxic concentrations of dissolved oil arising from the Deepwater Horizon blowout are likely to be significant in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

According to their simulations, the dead zones will be peaking this October. Thereafter the oxygen drawdown will slowly dissipate as the polluted water is mixed with Gulf waters that aren’t polluted. The simulations predict it will take a couple of years before the dead zones completely dissipate.

You can watch some informative animations of the simulations here.

The study was carried out when the flow rate from the Deepwater Horizon spill was still underestimated. But the simulated leak lasted longer than the actual spill. Consequently, the paper’s authors believe the overall impact on oxygen will be about the same.

As I wrote in BP’s Deep Secrets, the last thing the Gulf of Mexico needs is anymore dead zones. It’s already home to the second largest dead zone on Earth, a side-effect of fertilizer overuse in North America’s breadbasket.

The paper: Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2010GL044689, in press.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate