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Concept
Oxygen minimum zone
Summary
The oxygen minimum zone (OMZ), sometimes referred to as the shadow zone, is the zone in which oxygen saturation in seawater in the ocean is at its lowest. This zone occurs at depths of about , depending on local circumstances. OMZs are found worldwide, typically along the western coast of continents, in areas where an interplay of physical and biological processes concurrently lower the oxygen concentration (biological processes) and restrict the water from mixing with surrounding waters (physical processes), creating a "pool" of water where oxygen concentrations fall from the normal range of 4–6 mg/L to below 2 mg/L.
Surface ocean waters generally have oxygen concentrations close to equilibrium with the Earth's atmosphere. In general, colder waters hold more oxygen than warmer waters. As water moves out of the mixed layer into the thermocline, it is exposed to a rain of organic matter from above. Aerobic bacteria feed on this organic matter; oxygen is used as part of the bacterial metabolic process, lowering its concentration within the water. Therefore, the concentration of oxygen in deep water is dependent on the amount of oxygen it had when it was at the surface, minus depletion by deep sea organisms.
The downward flux of organic matter decreases sharply with depth, with 80–90% being consumed in the top . The deep ocean thus has higher oxygen because rates of oxygen consumption are low compared with the supply of cold, oxygen-rich deep waters from polar regions. In the surface layers, oxygen is supplied by photosynthesis of phytoplankton. Depths in between, however, have higher rates of oxygen consumption and lower rates of advective supply of oxygen-rich waters. In much of the ocean, mixing processes enable the resupply of oxygen to these waters (see upwelling).
A distribution of the open-ocean oxygen minimum zones is controlled by the large-scale ocean circulation as well as local physical as well as biological processes. For example, wind blowing parallel to the coast causes Ekman transport that upwells nutrients from deep water.
Official source
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