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North Atlantic Gyre and Microplastics

North Atlantic Gyre and Microplastics. By: Katie Todoroff. Circulation. Sub-tropical Convergence Zone. Concentration of Plastics. Sewage, tourism, fishing, waste from ships and boats 9,064 tons of plastic debris Gyre has surface area of 3,625,753 km^2 25,000 pieces of plastic/km^2

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North Atlantic Gyre and Microplastics

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  1. North Atlantic Gyre and Microplastics By: Katie Todoroff

  2. Circulation • Sub-tropical Convergence Zone

  3. Concentration of Plastics • Sewage, tourism, fishing, waste from ships and boats • 9,064 tons of plastic debris • Gyre has surface area of 3,625,753 km^2 • 25,000 pieces of plastic/km^2 • Highest concentrations observed in the Sargasso Sea

  4. Garbage Patches located beneath High Pressure Systems • Weak winds

  5. Estimation and Modeling • Use trajectories of drifting buoys to estimate the rate and location of aggregation • Consistent with observations of garbage and defragmented plastic • Neuston nets used to collect samples • Bottom Trawling Nets also used on the seafloor

  6. Entanglement and Ingestion

  7. Microplastics • Undergo photo-oxidative degradation • Happens faster on land and ocean surface, extremely slow process at abyssal depths due to lack of UV-rays and colder temperatures • Most are not visible to the naked-eye • Once surface is degraded, further broken down by stresses in the ocean such as turbulence

  8. Microplastics • Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)- occur universally in the oceans via runoff • POPs are hydrophobic, dissolved in the microplastics and concentrated there • Become bioavailable to organisms

  9. Implications to the Marine Food Web • Can deliver toxins across trophic levels • All types of plankton susceptible- foundation of the marine food web • No significant studies yet that quantify the outcomes • 1-L plastic water bottle will photo-degrade into enough small pieces to pout once piece on every mile of beach in the world

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