Would a dead whale carcass sink or float?

Answer 1

According to Dr. Craig R. Smith, professor of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, great whales that die in the wild are usually in poor nutritional condition and therefore will sink at death. Once the lungs deflate the carcass will sink quite rapidly. If the whale sinks in deep enough water the "hydrostatic pressure will limit the generation of buoyant decompositional gases through reduction of gas volume and increased gas solubility" (Allison et al. 1991). The soft tissue will be removed by scavengers or disintegrate from microbial decomposition long before positive buoyancy can be generated, and the carcass will remain on the seafloor (Allison et al. 1991)

These dead whales are called whale fall. Smith was one of the first scientists to "discover" a naturally occurring whale fall in the late 1980s. His studies of this natural phenomenon have led to the discovery of several new species of deep sea marine life that exist only at whale fall sites.

Smith goes on to say in his chapter entitled Bigger Is Better: The Role of Whales as Detritus in Marine Ecosystems in the book Whales, Whaling and Ocean Ecosystems: "At shallower depths, there is some probability that gas generation could refloat a whale carcass, although this will depend in part on the outcome of competition for soft tissue between scavengers and microbes."

Jacquie Sewell, Librarian