What Lurks beneath- dead zone off SF Bay....

Great article by Brendan Buhler  on upwelling and the anoxic water on the bottom outside the bay:

"Then in April 2011, the attention of Largier and his colleagues was caught by data from a regular monthly survey of the Bay done by the U.S. Geological Survey. It showed a continuous layer of low-oxygen water along the bottom of the central and south Bay. The oxygen levels were less than 5 milligrams per liter—low enough to look like the sign of a water quality problem caused by organic pollution, Largier says. But the water was also cold and salty, and clearly from the ocean. Here, sneaking over the sandbar and slithering across the bottom of the Bay, was the killer upwelling."

https://baynature.atavist.com/what-lurks-beneath?

Dungie city!

Very interesting read!

thanks for the education of the bay...... cold,ocean water below.....warm fresh water above. I never thunk that!

Great read thanks for sharing!

-Eliot

Actually I should have known this has been on NCKA before, just not in California.

"Oregon's hypoxia was first reported in 2002 by crab fishermen, who found up to 75 percent of their catch in crab pots was coming up dead. Checking oceanographic records, Oregon scientists found that oxygen levels in the open ocean had been trending downward for five decades, a likely precursor to the advent of nearshore hypoxia."

There are posts on this board from 2006, 2007 about annual dead zone dungie kills in Oregon. Its kind of a big deal.. and the possibility that it is showing up here is not good for crabs....

Thanks!

creating the watery equivalent of an electronic dance music festival, a place utterly unfit for multicellular life