Every summer for the past nine years, water with lethally low concentrations of oxygen has appeared off the Oregon coast. The hypoxia may be a sign of things to come elsewhere, finds Virginia Gewin.The dead fish were one of the first signs. In July 2002, scientists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife found unusual numbers of bottom-feeding sculpin lying lifeless on the ocean floor, which would normally be teeming with life. Crabs were also dying, and they washed up onto some beaches in large numbers.
Officials at the government agency asked Francis Chan, a biogeochemist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, for help in discovering the cause of the disturbance as quickly as possible. Chan was about to set off on a scheduled research cruise along the Oregon coast, so he grabbed all the extra equipment he could think of, including a brand-new oxygen sensor.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Oceanography: Dead in the water : Nature News
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