Would OIF Result In Anoxia Or Dead Zones?
Anoxia is caused by persistent excessive primary biological productivity that can lead to low oxygen conditions as a result of the metabolism of the organic material from biological productivity. Anoxia (or “dead zones”) occur in coastal ocean waters, often as a result of the continuous abundant supply of nitrate and phosphate from land that can sustain large blooms of phytoplankton for many months. This generates a large amount of organic matter which decomposes and absorbs oxygen. Anoxia rarely occurs in the open ocean because surface waters do not have a continuous supply of nutrients (e.g., nitrate, phosphate, silicate, iron) that can sustain blooms for extended periods. In the open ocean, natural phytoplankton blooms, as well as artificially stimulated ones die out in a matter of weeks due to limited macronutrients. This effect was also observed in experiments that applied iron to the ocean multiple times and did not observe any increase in phytoplankton productivity compared to e
