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Plastic Pollution

By Guest PostMay 2, 2012Environmentalgae, bacteria, dylan meyer, environmental group, factor, giora proskurowski, historical weather data, kara lavendar law, liver function, mathematical model, model, north atlantic expedition, ocean, pacific garbage patch, plastic marine debris, plastic particles, plastic pollution, pollutant, recipe, skye moret ferguson, teresa messmore, tobias kukulka, university of delaware, university of washington, wind

Wind pushes plastics deeper into oceans, driving trash estimates up

Decades of research into how much plastic litters the sea may have only skimmed the surface. A new study reveals that wind drives confetti-sized pieces of plastic debris deeper underwater than previously believed, more than doubling earlier estimates of the pollutant’s presence in oceans.

“In windy conditions the traditional approach to measuring plastic marine debris captures only a small fraction of plastic pieces,” said Tobias Kukulka, assistant professor of physical ocean science and engineering in the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. “Our study helps to better understand how much plastic there is and where, as well as the complexity of the ocean dynamics at work.” (more…)

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’

By Guest PostNovember 17, 2010Environment, Scienceadam soule, atmosphere, baja peninsula, bathymetry, carbon, climate, CO2, crust, daniel lizarralde, earth, gas, giora proskurowski, greenhouse gases, guaymas basin, gulf of california, hydrothermal vent, jeff s seewald, methane, molten magma, north guaymas, ocean, red sea, s adam soule, seafloor, tectonic plates, undersea ridges, volcanic rocks

The Earth is constantly manufacturing new crust, spewing molten magma up along undersea ridges at the boundaries of tectonic plates. The process is critical to the planet’s metabolism, including the cycle of underwater life and the delicate balance of carbon in the ocean and atmosphere.

Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have observed ocean crust forming in an entirely unexpected way—one that may influence those cycles of life and carbon and, in turn, affect the much-discussed future of the world’s climate.

Working at the Guaymas basin in the Gulf of California, WHOI scientists confirmed what they suspected from brief glimpses of the area during previous missions: The inner Earth is injecting swaths of magma called sills as far as 50 kilometers away from the plate boundary, on each side of the ridge —nearly 10 times farther from such an active ocean ridge than had been observed before. (more…)

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Plastic Pollution

‘Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget’