Photo of the Week

We are excited to bring back our Photo of the Week section so stay tuned for new content coming soon! In the meantime, take a look at these fantastic pictures from our teachers.

“At station #146 we had an oxygen reading of 1 mg/L (which is hypoxic) but pulled up a huge net of fish that filled 18 buckets.”

July 15, 2013

The Gulf of Mexico’s Dead Zone is an area where oxygen levels are too low for fish to breathe. So why did scientists catch so many fish at hypoxic Station #146?

Photo: Sarah Boehm

At station #146 we had an oxygen reading of 1 mg/L (which is hypoxic) but pulled up a huge net of fish that filled 18 buckets. The total weight was 340 kg, but over 300 kg was just two species – croaker and butterfish. We were surprised by this catch and so did another oxygen reading and found while our nets started in hypoxic waters, during the 30 minute trawl we moved into better water with 3 mg/L of oxygen... Why was station #146 so huge? As the low oxygen waters spread out from the Mississippi River delta, critters were fleeing the hypoxia zone and moving to better water. So along the edge of the dead zone is an area with high population density; the oxygen refugees and the fish swooping in to eat them." - Sarah Boehm

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