Alarm in the world for the detection of "dead zones", lifeless, in the Atlantic Ocean.

Alarm in the world for the detection of "dead zones", lifeless, in the Atlantic Ocean.

Alarm in the world for the detection of "dead zones", lifeless, in the Atlantic Ocean.

It happened a few hundred kilometers from the coast of West Africa, where a German and Canadian research team found 'dead regions' with extremely low levels of oxygen.

According to the study by scientists, they are impoverished areas of oxygen, forming in swirls and moving westward at speeds of between 4 and 5 kilometers per day. Most of the marine life is unable to survive in them, beyond certain microorganisms. Thus, any animal to breathe the 'dead water' of these eddies dies, which, of course, opens up the possibility of a mass death.

Scientists explained that the deadly conditions in these regions are given by rapid water circulation within the swirls, which hinders oxygen exchange. Then there is the phenomenon whereby the same rotation generates a layer of several tens of meters thick, on the surface of the swirls, wherein the plant growth which, on decomposition, consume oxygen is added is favored.

"Prior to our study, it was believed that the open waters of the North Atlantic had minimum oxygen concentrations of about 40 micromoles per liter of sea water," explains Johannes Karstensen, lead author of the study. However, these proportions have decreased compared to the measurements taken previously.

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Featured Global news Sunday, July 05, 2015