North Atlantic Ocean Garbage Patch

Researchers Map the North Atlantic Ocean Garbage Patch

A high concentration of plastic garbage is polluting the Atlantic Ocean north of the Caribbean, says a new study by researchers from SEA, the University of Hawaii and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Plastic marine debris collected in a surface plankton net tow. Credit: SEA

Kara Lavendar Law, one of the principal researchers,  announced the findings of a 22-year study at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, US.

Dr Lavender Law said that she and her team of Sea Education Association undergraduates had picked up 64,000 plus small pieces of plastic garbage measuring up to 1cm across, using fine mesh nets  towed by a research boat.

“We found a region fairly far north in the Atlantic Ocean where this debris appears to be concentrated and remains over long periods of time,” she said.

“More than 80% of the plastic pieces we collected in the tows were found between 22 and 38 degrees north. So we have a latitude for [the patch where the] rubbish seems to accumulate.”

Mahi mahi caught using hand line in the North Pacific Ocean. Dissection of the fish revealed a piece of plastic embedded in its stomach. Source: SEA

The “plastic density” was a maximum of about 200,000 pieces of garbage per square kilometer, Dr Lavender Law said. “That’s a maximum that is comparable with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

“We know that many marine organisms are consuming these plastics and we know this has a bad effect on seabirds in particular.” She said.

Related Links:

• Back from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”
• WILD FACTS SERIES: Our Oceans Are Dying!

• Southern Ocean already losing ability to absorb CO₂
• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part IV :  Researchers found evidence of corrosive water about 20 miles off the west coast of North America from Canada to Mexico.
• Human carbon emissions make oceans corrosive : ‘Carbon dioxide spewed by human activities has made ocean water so acidic that it is eating away at the shells and skeletons of starfish, coral, clams and other sea creatures …’
• The Eight Steps that Help Kill More of Our Fish : How Your Car’s Exhaust Emissions Helps Create Dead Zones and Kill Our Fish.
• Global warming could starve oceans of oxygen: study : Areas of the eastern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with low amounts of dissolved oxygen have expanded in the past 50 years, apparently in line with rising temperatures.
• The Floating Toxic Garbage Island : A patch of garbage twice as large as the continental United States and dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in North Pacific Gyre.
• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part III : Tourism: The Most Destructive Human Activity After Warfare
• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part II : Major Problems: Fertilizer Runoff; Tourism; Coastal Developments [and Ocean Warming due to climate change]
• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part I : Our Oceans Are Now Dying!