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OCEAN
SPRINGS – Dr.
Nancy Rabalais has been studying the Gulf of Mexico's "dead
zone" for a more than a decade and she'll share her research
findings during a Jan. 29 seminar at The University of Southern
Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
The presentation
– another in a series of Wednesday sessions focusing on the
health of gulf estuaries and fisheries – will take place from
10 a.m.-1 p.m. at GCRL's Caylor Auditorium. Lunch and informal discussions
with the speaker will take place from noon-1 p.m.
Rabalais, a
scientist for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is considered
a leading expert on the gulf's dead zone, an area off the Louisiana
coast in which the oxygen level is too low to support marine life.
"The area
of depleted oxygen occurs in coastal waters off Louisiana during
the late summer, sometimes reaching the size of a small state,"
a GCRL researcher explained. "The lack of dissolved oxygen
kills organisms unable to leave the area, and the oxygen-starved
water forces more mobile animals to move to other habitats."
The GCRL Wednesday
sessions are scheduled through April as a part of a Southern Miss
graduate course offered by the Department of Coastal Sciences and
the university's Center for Fisheries Research and Development at
the Ocean Springs laboratory site. Coastal sciences students will
close the course April 30 with a mock trial on the issue: "Should
the Gulf of Mexico be declared a no-take zone?"
The department,
the center and GCRL are part of the College of Marine Sciences,
the university's provider of marine research, education and service.
Interested individuals may register for the seminar by calling Dale
Fremin at (228) 872-4256. The $5 registration fee includes a brown-bag
lunch.
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