Vertical Variability of Anoxia Along the Northern Omani Shelf.

Three autonomous underwater gliders were deployed along a 80 km transect extending from Muscat out into the Gulf during both monsoons and the intermonsoon season as part of a project funded by ONR Global and the UK NERC. The gliders surveyed the top 1000m across the continental shelf, the steep continental slope, and the Sea of Oman while measuring temperature, salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll a fluorescence, optical backscatter, photosyntheticall active radiation and providing estimates of depth-averaged currents and up/downwelling.

The data show the depth of the surface oxycline varying by 50m across the transect as a function of mixed layer depth. Below, we observed high variability, on the order of days, in the oxygen profile with the boundary of the suboxic zone (< 6 µmol.kg^-1) varying by up to 250m. This upper boundary was determined by the volume of the Persian Gulf Water (PGW) outflow which travels along the shelf edge. Below 400m, oxygen concentrations reached levels below 1 µmol.kg^-1. The physical drivers of PGW transport therefore double, or reduce by half, the available habitat for macrofauna. The across-shelf transect allowed estimation of along-slope transport and variability of the PGW, identified by its higher salinity, temperature, optical backscatter and oxygen content. The structure and volume of the outflow was highly variable. During peak outflow, the core extended beyond the glider transect. During periods of minimal flow, it was constrained to 10km beyond the shelf break. PGW was also present in mesoscale eddies beyond the shelf break.