Scientists recently surveyed the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico around Louisiana and Texas and what they discovered was a larger-than-average area of oxygen-depleted water – a “dead zone” where nothing can live.
 
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists announced their findings this week: about 4m acres of habitat in the Gulf are unusable for fish and bottom-dwelling species. The researchers had estimated a smaller dead zone this year, predicting an average-sized area.
 
“The distribution of the low dissolved oxygen was unusual this summer,” Nancy Rabalais, the professor at Louisiana State University who led the study, said in a statement. “The low oxygen conditions were very close to shore with many observations showing an almost complete lack of oxygen.”
 
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