“Dead Zone”

From Smithsonian Magazine, April 2008:

Gasping for Breath
An ocean “dead zone” has been discovered off the Pacific Northwest. The water has so little oxygen that it “kills any marine animals that cannot swim or scuttle away,” says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University. She and her colleagues analyzed 60 years of data and found that oxygen levels dropped in 2002. Most of the hundreds of dead zones worldwide are caused by pollution. But this one was caused by winds and currents that disrupted the ecosystem and fueled oxygen-depleting bacteria.

Visit Jane’s webpage here: http://lucile.science.oregonstate.edu/lubchenco/

Jane

With all due respect to the other Janes on campus, at OSU when you say “Jane”, it can only mean one person: Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Wayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology and Distringuished Professor of Zoology, Oregon State University.

Jane was recently a guest on NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Map Reveals Extensive Damage to World’s Oceans (click on the link to listen!)