The dead zone. So utterly dead that corpses barely rot. What sunlight might penetrate here has been sucked dry of its life giving energy and plants don't survive.
Limnologists identify the dead zone as the hypolimnion.
The waters of the hypolimnion are so dense that the currents of the warmer, lighter, oxygen rich environment overhead don't mix. On the lake's surface it can be Victory at Sea, but in the dead zone not a wisp of silt will reflect that turbulence. The dead zone is a niche harboring a limitless source of nutrient and is devoid of predators. Any organism that could exploit the zone would thrive in extraordinary abundance. The Chironomidae is one of several families of midges.