Mon, 21 Dec 2020 13:45 UTC
The research team lowers a particle collection device into waters off the coast of Manzanillo, Mexico. Credit: Morgan Raven
With no dissolved oxygen to sustain animals or plants, ocean anoxic zones are areas where only microbes suited to the environment can live.
"You don't get big fish," said UC Santa Barbara biogeochemist Morgan Raven. "You don't even get charismatic zooplankton." But although anoxic oceans may seem alien to organisms like ourselves that breathe oxygen, they're full of life, she said.
These strange ecosystems are expanding, thanks to climate change — a development that is of concern for fisheries and anyone who relies on oxygen-rich oceans. But what piques Raven's interest is the changing chemistry of the oceans — the Earth's largest carbon sink — and how it could move carbon from the atmosphere to long-term reservoirs like rocks.