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Microplastic pollution in deep-sea sediments from the Great Australian Bight

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journal contribution
posted on 2024-11-21, 01:05 authored by J Barrett, Zanna ChaseZanna Chase, J Zhang, MM Banaszak Holl, Kathryn Willis, A Williams, Britta HardestyBritta Hardesty, Chris WilcoxChris Wilcox

Interest in understanding the extent of plastic and specifically microplastic pollution has increased on a global scale. However, we still know relatively little about how much plastic pollution has found its way into the deeper areas of the world’s oceans. The extent of microplastic pollution in deep-sea sediments remains poorly quantified, but this knowledge is imperative for predicting the distribution and potential impacts of global plastic pollution. To address this knowledge gap, we quantified microplastics in deep-sea sediments from the Great Australian Bight using an adapted density separation and dye fluorescence technique. We analyzed sediment cores from six locations (1–6 cores each, n = 16 total samples) ranging in depth from 1,655 to 3,062 m and offshore distances ranging from 288 to 356 km from the Australian coastline. Microplastic counts ranged from 0 to 13.6 fragments per g dry sediment (mean 1.26 ± 0.68; n = 51). We found substantially higher microplastic counts than recorded in other analyses of deep-sea sediments. Overall, the number of microplastic fragments in the sediment increased as surface plastic counts increased, and as the seafloor slope angle increased. However, microplastic counts were highly variable, with heterogeneity between sediment cores from the same location greater than the variation across sampling sites. Based on our empirical data, we conservatively estimate 14 million tonnes of microplastic reside on the ocean floor.

History

Publication title

Frontiers in Marine Science

Volume

7

Issue

OCT

Article number

576170

Number

576170

Pagination

1-10

ISSN

2296-7745

Department/School

School of Social Sciences, IMAS Directorate, Oceans and Cryosphere, Office of the School of Social Sciences, Ecology and Biodiversity

Publisher

Frontiers Research Foundation

Publication status

  • Published

Place of publication

Switzerland

Rights statement

Copyright 2020 Barrett, Chase, Zhang, Holl, Willis, Williams, Hardesty and Wilcox. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

Socio-economic Objectives

180501 Assessment and management of benthic marine ecosystems

UN Sustainable Development Goals

14 Life Below Water

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