The deepest -known marine zone of the Earth, the Mariana fossa, at a depth of 6,800 meters in the Western Pacific, houses an average 13,500 plastic particles for each cubic meter of water, as highlighted by a study collected on Wednesday in Nature.
The depths of the ocean have become microplastic graves whose large -scale impact is largely unknown, according to the first great study on the distribution and behavior of tiny plastic waste within the sea.
One of the keys that the work reveals is that the distribution of microplastics in the ocean depends on their size: the largest (between 100 and 5,000 microns) are effectively trapped in the background by stratification.
However, smaller microplastics (less than 100 microns) gradually decrease with depth, and their distribution in the sea is more uniform and has a longer useful life in the water column than the largest particles have.
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The Mariana pit: a sack of microplastics at 6,800 meters deep
Although microplastics have been falling to the ocean for decades, most studies on them have been based on samples taken in the 50 higher centimeters of the marine surface.
In this study, researchers have analyzed, for the first time, samples to all types of depths, from 1,885 registration stations of the entire world ocean between 2014 and 2024, with the aim of evaluating the concentrations and behaviors of in depth microplastics.
The results of the analysis are as striking as worrying: the Palm of the Marianas is carried, with 13,500 plastic particles for each cubic meter of water, at a depth of 6,800 meters.
In the Atlantic more than 1,100 particles per cubic meter are observed at depths of 100-270 meters; and 600 particles per cubic meter at a depth of 2,000 meters in the subtropical turn of the North Pacific.
The authors point out that their research highlights the lack of standardized methodologies that allow us to better understand the distribution of microplastics in the ocean.
With EFE information.
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