Sunday, March 22, 2015

Depth of Plastic Pollution in Oceans Revealed

If this article on the state of our oceans doesn't get your attention, nothing will!

Excerpt from PHYS.org:

    PhD candidate Julia Reisser and her international team published the study in the journal Biogeosciences, reporting the first ever high-resolution vertical profiles of  in the so-called "ocean garbage patches".
    Most of the submerged plastics were very small - less than 1 mm across. Previous studies noticed that tiny plastics were missing from the oceans.
    "We have shown that at least a fraction of this missing plastic is still adrift at sea, but at depths greater than the  layer that is usually sampled by scientists," Ms Reisser said.
    By using a new measuring device called a Multi-level Trawl, the researchers were able to measure plastic concentrations in ten layers simultaneously, down to a depth of 5 meters.
    While taking measurements in the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, the team demonstrated that the mass concentration of millimetre-sized plastics drops exponentially from the  to deeper waters.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-depth-plastic-pollution-oceans-revealed.html#jCp

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