Scientists Find Ocean Desert in Taiwan Strait
Chinese scientists recently discovered a huge ocean desert at the bottom of the Taiwan Strait. They published a paper about the finding in the Journal of Natural Resources, the 3rd issue 2009.
The desert covers an area of 15, 000 square kilometers only 30 meters below the sea. The sandy beach is still moving and reshaping owing to the currents and ocean tide. There is barely any zoobenthos in the area.
The desert is constituted of fine sand with shell debris, beach rock and basalt, noted Dr. Shi Qian from Department of Environmental Engineering, Xiamen University of Technology. The research team also estimated that the ocean desert has over 100 trillion cubic meters of sand, enough for construction use on both sides of the Strait for over 100 years.
Shi Qian, Zhang Junyuan from Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and Prof. Cai Aizhi from College of Oceanography and Environmental Science of Xiamen University discovered the desert located in the southern-central Taiwan Strait in an on-spot investigation.
