Study near Gulf of Mexico spill site finds surprisingly high methane uptake by microbes Contact: Steve Bradt, steve_bradt@harvard.edu, Harvard University 20 October 2010 CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 20, 2010 — Microbes living at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may consume far more of the gaseous waste from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill than previously […]
By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune October 12, 2010, 4:21 PM The sprawling band of lifeless ocean water known as the “dead zone” that forms each summer in the Gulf of Mexico has been well-documented for decades, with teams of government and research scientists analyzing the ecological impacts every year. But much less is known about […]
By Staff WritersWashington DC (SPX) Oct 11, 2010 Humans are overloading ecosystems with nitrogen through the burning of fossil fuels and an increase in nitrogen-producing industrial and agricultural activities, according to a new study. While nitrogen is an element that is essential to life, it is an environmental scourge at high levels. According to the […]
Sir David Attenborough reveals the findings of one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time – an investigation into what is happening to our oceans. He looks at whether it is too late to save their remarkable biodiversity. Horizon travels from the cold waters of the North Atlantic to the tropical waters of […]
ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2010) — Tile drainage in the Mississippi Basin is one of the great advances of the 19th and 20th centuries, allowing highly productive agriculture in what was once land too wet to farm. In fact, installation of new tile systems continues every year, because it leads to increased crop yields. But a […]
By Christopher Dunagan, Kitsap SunSeptember 21, 2010 at 10:45 a.m. HOODSPORT — The massive fish kill that many researchers warned about Monday may have begun early this morning, as many hundreds of dead fish and thousands of shrimp washed up on Hood Canal beaches, officials say. “We have hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions all the way […]
Data suggest sewage upgrades working, farm runoff controls aren’t By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun September 15, 2010 A new study shows some Chesapeake Bay rivers have gotten cleaner over the past three decades, while others are getting worse. The analysis, released Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey, suggests costly upgrades of sewage plants […]
By PAUL VOOSEN of GreenwireSeptember 17, 2010 Perhaps it should have been called the Gulf of Mexico gas spill. A vast majority of the natural gas that billowed out of BP PLC’s failed well in the Gulf this summer did not escape to the surface and atmosphere. Instead, the gas — including its main component, […]
By Bob Warren, The Times-PicayuneMonday, September 13, 2010, 3:42 PM Plaquemines Parish officials have asked state wildlife officials to investigate what they said is a massive fish kill at Bayou Chaland on the west side of the Mississippi River late Friday. Photographs the parish distributed of the area shows an enormous amount of dead fish […]
Climate change is likely to expand and intensify “dead zones,” areas where bottom water is depleted of dissolved oxygen because of nitrogen pollution, threatening living things. More spring runoff and warmer coastal waters will increase the seasonal reduction in oxygen resulting from excess nitrogen from agriculture. Coastal dead zones in places such as the northern […]
