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Science 6 January 1984:
Vol. 223. no. 4631, pp. 22 - 27
DOI: 10.1126/science.223.4631.22
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Articles

Chesapeake Bay Anoxia: Origin, Development, and Significance

Charles B. Officer 1, Robert B. Biggs 2, Jay L. Taft 3, L. Eugene Cronin 4, Mary A. Tyler 5, and Walter R. Boynton 6

1 Research professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
2 Associate professor at the College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, Newark 19711.
3 Director of administration at Harvard University Herbaria, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.
4 Director of Chesapeake Research Consortium, Shady Side, Maryland 20764.
5 Assistant professor at the College of Marine Studies, University of Delaware, Newark.
6 Associate professor at Chesapeake Biological Laboratories, University of Maryland, Solomons 20688.

Anoxia occurs annually in deeper waters of the central portion of the Chesapeake Bay and presently extends from Baltimore to the mouth of the Potomac estuary. This condition, which encompasses some 5 billion cubic meters of water and lasts from May to September, is the result of increased stratification of the water column in early spring, with consequent curtailment of reoxygenation of the bottom waters across the halocline, and benthic decay of organic detritus accumulated from plankton blooms of the previous summer and fall. The Chesapeake Bay anoxia appears to have had significant ecological effects on many marine species, including several of economic importance.


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Catastrophic Anoxia in the Chesapeake Bay in 1984.
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