The Big Oyster 4

Question 1

dredge

Answer 1

noun
A dredger (or “dredge” as is the general usage in the Americas) is any device, machine, or vessel that is used to excavate and remove material from the bottom of a body of water. 

“Each time a dredge was hauled across a bed, it hauled up seven to eight bushels of oysters. By 1880, the use of steam power was estimated to have increased the amount of oysters brought to market twelve times from the catch when oyster fleets had been purely sail-powered.” (249)

MD - Sea creatures like coral dread the dredge, since it digs them up and kicks up silt preventing the zoaxanthellae from nourishing the coral that remain through photosynthesis.

Question 2

DDT

Answer 2

abbreviation
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a synthetic organic compound introduced in the 1940s and used as an insecticide. Like other chlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT tends to persist in the environment and become concentrated in animals at the head of the food chain. Its use is now banned in many countries.

“They [oysters] can be used to measure pollutants such as DDT and have even been used to measure radiation.”

MD - ddt - doesn’t, disintegrate, timely

Question 3

Crassostrea gigas

Answer 3

Noun
The Pacific oyster, Japanese oyster or Miyagi oyster, is an oyster native to the Pacific coast of Asia. It has become an introduced species in North America, Australia, Europe, and New Zealand

“Califronians were accustomed to smaller oysters and New Yorkers theorized that cold Pacific waters stunted them early in their growth, but it might be that the Crassostrea gigas is a smaller oyster than its East coast cousin, Crassostrea virginica.” (255)

MD - gigas->gigabyte–>tech industr –>California
Like the virginica, the gigas are estuarine molluscks that attach to substrates and live sedentary lives in the intertidal zone to a depth of 40 meters. However, gigas can also survive in sand and mud!

Question 4

acrid

Answer 4

adjective
having an irritatingly strong and unpleasant taste or smell: acrid fumes.

“This was a time when the Passaic River, once regarded as the best fishing river in New Jersey, was so foul that it emitted acrid fumes that blistered the paint off nearby houses.” (256)

MD - Hagrid took an acrid shit.

Question 5

excavate

Answer 5

noun
make a hole or channel by digging

• extract material from the ground by digging

MD - latin - cavus - hollow (lie cav ity) to make a hollow