The wide oceanic bodies of the planet are undoubtedly full of various ecosystem setup, which also serves as a habitat for millions of marine biodiversity scattered across the globe. However, there are spots in the oceans where certain aquatic microorganisms can't live into. These areas are considered pockets in which the oxygen levels decline, and water content does not cope with the required composition of animals.
Oxygen-Deficient Zones and Ocean Bodies
These oceanic pockets are known as or ODZs. The area in question is filled with nitrous oxide, and the absence of sustainable oxygen content makes it hard for some living bodies to live near or inside it. Although it is bizarre that oxygen-deficient zones are existent on the wide waters of Earth, they make up less than 1 percent of the total volume of oceans.
The chemical inside ODZs is considered a solid contributor to greenhouse gasses. When the nitrous oxide escapes the pockets and flows throughout the ocean, fishing industries and the natural ecosystems underwater could be inflicted with unwanted problems.
The oxygen-deficient zones can be found in every part of the planet's oceans. However, both scientific experts and marine enterprises are having a hard time pinpointing the exact locations of each of the oxygen-poor pockets.
With that said, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed the first-ever detailed atlas of ODZs around the globe. Among the major regions included in the atlas are the oxygen-depleted areas sitting at the heart of the tropical Pacific.
One of the greater ODZs of the ocean stretches throughout South America's coast and measures about 600,000 cubic kilometers, a size comparable to 240 billion Olympic swimming pools. The second major ODZ in the Pacific is charted at the coast of Central America and scales three times larger than the ODZ in South America.
New Atlas of Oxygen-Deprived Pockets in Oceans Created by MIT
According to a report by PhysOrg, each of the starved bodies of water was analyzed, and data from their depths, volume, and compositions was all recorded in the new ODZ atlas.
The development of the atlas was made possible through the collaborative efforts of the scientists, combined with the collective oceanic data compiled over the past 40 years. The accuracy of measurements could also be considered unparalleled due to over 15 million measurement approaches implemented in the study.
Aside from the arithmetics of the atlas, the authors also produced a full-scale of the ODZ's translated imaging. This simulation shows a three-dimensional illustration of the pockets, combined through the captured scenes of autonomous marine crafts and cruise shits.
The authors of the atlas development expect that the recorded version of the ODZ will be filled with contributing data in the future. The experts also anticipate that the data harnessed into the single atlas could contribute to upcoming investigations in case that the pockets may shift due to the never-ending change of Earth's climate; the study was published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, titled "A High-Resolution Atlas of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Oxygen Deficient Zones."
Check out more news and information on Ocean in Science Times.
