2008 EARTH SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| DEAD ZONES: A REAL HORROR STORY FOR MARINE LIFE
| G08-HD090 | 7/11/08 | 9:50 | Dead zones are not just a title of a Stephen King novel, but also of areas in coastal waters where a lack of oxygen can be a real horror story for marine life. Dead zones can occur naturally, but most form when polluted water drains out of cities and farmland and winds up concentrated in the ocean. These pollutants spark a chain of events that suck the oxygen out of the water, forming a dead zone. As summer gets underway, we may be hearing more about dead zones as strong summer storms can worsen the runoff that often trigger them.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): Dead Zone Formation - Dead zones are areas of water so devoid of oxygen that sea life cannot live there. If fertilizers or other nutrients enhance phytoplankton productivity, more organic matter is produced at the surface of the ocean. The organic matter sinks to the bottom, where bacteria break it down and release carbon dioxide. Bacteria thrive off excessive organic matter and absorb oxygen, the same oxygen that fish, crabs and other sea creatures rely on for life.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (2): Mississippi Dead Zone - This visualization shows how ocean color changes from winter to summer in the Gulf of Mexico. Summertime satellite observations of ocean color from MODIS Aqua show highly turbid waters, which may include large blooms of phytoplankton extending from the mouth of the Mississippi River all the way to the Texas coast. Reds and oranges represent high concentrations of phytoplankton and river sediment.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (3): Mississippi River Watershed - This animation illustrates how water flows from the middle of the United States down to the Mississippi River. Much of the nutrients, fertilizers and pollution that impact the health of the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico originate far upstream. The flow of water through a watershed demonstrates how human activities far from the ocean can have dramatic impact on life in the sea.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (4): Chesapeake Bay Watershed Region - The watershed that drains into the Chesapeake Bay is a huge expanse that extends 64,000 square miles into five states across the United States (New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia) and the District of Columbia. This visualization lays the full watershed over a Landsat data visualization of the Chesapeake Bay area. The eight distinctly colored regions indicate the Chesapeake's major sub-watersheds.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (5): Biosphere Data Across The United States - These visualizations represent nearly a decade's worth of data taken by the SeaWiFS instrument, showing the abundance of life in the sea and along the coasts of the United States. Dark blue represents warmer areas where there is little life due to lack of nutrients, and greens and reds represent cooler, nutrient-rich areas. The nutrient-rich waters contribute to some of the oxygen-poor pockets of the seas called dead zones.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (6): SeaWiFS Spacecraft - SeaWiFS (the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor) is designed to pioneer new global environmental observations and research. By providing a regular picture of the planet's color, SeaWiFS helps researchers learn about the state of the world's interconnected ecosystems.
Courtesy: NASA
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