New Garbage Gyre Discovered - This Time, In S. Pacific Between Chile & Pitcairn Island

[hatrack]

Scientists from The 5 Gyres Institute have discovered the first evidence of a “garbage patch,” an accumulation zone of plastic pollution floating in the South Pacific subtropical gyre. The new study, published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin marks the first documentation of a defined oceanic garbage patch in the Southern Hemisphere, where little research on marine plastic pollution exists.

In March and April 2011, a team of scientists and interested citizens lead by 5 Gyres Institute Executive Director, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, conducted the first ever sampling of the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre for marine plastic pollution. The expedition began collecting samples of the ocean surface near Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile. Samples were collected every 50 nautical miles westward to Easter Island, then onward to Pitcairn Island, totaling 48 samples along a 2,424 nautical mile straight-line transect.

Eriksen selected the route based on an ocean current model developed by Nikolai Maximenko (University of Hawaii, Honolulu) that predicts accumulation zones for floating debris. The research team recorded increased density of plastic pollution with an average of 26,898 particles per square kilometer, and a high of 396,342 km/m2 in the center of the predicted accumulation zone. This confirms the existence of yet another oceanic “garbage patch.”

“The 5 Gyres Institute was conceived to create baseline data in all the world’s oceans, to determine whether plastic pollution is pervasive in all the major gyres of the world. Without a doubt, we have discovered a previously unknown garbage patch in the South Pacific Subtropical Gyre,” said Dr. Eriksen.

EDIT

http://ecowatch.org/2013/new-garbage-patch-discovered/

[babylonsister]

1. So depressing. nt