Scientists find 5 large islands of plastic marine deserts – Faro de Vigo

Around the world oceanographic expedition “Malaspina” was a x-extent of pollution and climate change unprecedented, whose research will be talking about for decades. Four years later, with 2,000 samples of microorganisms (DNA) contained in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific up to 4,000 meters deep and more than 18 countries involved in the project led by Spain, scientists have their say.

The first conclusions are already on the table: the pollution reaches the most remote areas of the ocean; There are five large accumulations of plastic waste in the open ocean-but have disproved the myth of the “plastic island” – between 10 and 30% fish more fish than previously thought and has begun to sequence the genome the global deep ocean.

In the oceans there is so much plastic as believed and they live ten times more fish than that, plus thousands of viruses and bacteria with hitherto unknown genetic compositions calculated, according to scientists at the Spanish expedition Malaspina prove.

The project coordinator and biologist, Carlos Duarte, presented in Barcelona the results of the largest global research on the global state of the oceans and their biodiversity in the XXI, at a conference with more than 80 experts and presentations.

century scientists, who sailed for seven months on a voyage of over 35,000 nautical miles aboard two ships, found that chemical contaminants are extended to all corners of the ocean.

Despite this, the researchers from the Center for Scientific Research (CSIC) belied the myth that there is a “plastic island” in the middle of the ocean and are now investigating why there is less plastic than they expected to find.

One of the hypotheses that study is that some of the bacteria found they can destroy or be consumed by some of the fish that live deep and found in amounts not believed until now.

Yes found that there are five large accumulations of plastic waste in the so-called “marine deserts”, where there is no ocean currents.

Duarte explained that the expedition has saved thousands of samples with microorganisms and their DNA collected at 4,000 meters deep in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, duplicate and sealed to be opened in 20 years, when we expect to have new advanced analytical methods for esculcar further this scientific treasure. Samples of organic matter in the deep ocean are at the Institute of Marine Research in Vigo (IIM), while zooplankton at the University of Cadiz and other plankton and phytoplankton in Barcelona.

expedition manages a database which contains the levels of organic pollutants in the oceans. They have succeeded in determining how globally distributed dioxins, chemical compounds generated during combustion of organic waste for the first time. “The concentrations are higher near continents, a fact which is explained by the degradation processes during transport and ocean deposited directly from the atmosphere,” explains Jordi Dachs, a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research . They are “evidence that climate change is real” and “a reality with which we must live,” said one of the researchers, Eugenio Fraile.