The Gulf of Mexico Essay by BrainC

This paper explains that, now roughly the size of the state of New Jersey, the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone was first discovered in the early 1970s when the phenomenon occurred only once every two or three years; however, due to an increase in environmental pollutants, the dead zone currently occurs every summer in Gulf waters. The author points out that hypoxia occurs when pollutant-ridden water from the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf of Mexico; this carries an excess of nutrients, especially nitrogen, into the salt water, encouraging local algal populations to thrive by killing off the fish. The paper stresses that the dead zone in the Gulf affects not only marine life, but also human welfare because fishing and farming industries are the most directly and adversely affected by hypoxia.