Multidecadal increase in plastic particles in coastal ocean sediments.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31517049.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.aax0587 and PMC identifier 6726453.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
We analyzed coastal sediments of the Santa Barbara Basin, California, for historical changes in microplastic deposition using a box core that spanned 1834-2009. The sediment was visually sorted for plastic, and a subset was confirmed as plastic polymers via FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy. After correcting for contamination introduced during sample processing, we found an exponential increase in plastic deposition from 1945 to 2009 with a doubling time of 15 years. This increase correlated closely with worldwide plastic production and southern California coastal population increases over the same period. Increased plastic loading in sediments has unknown consequences for deposit-feeding benthic organisms. This increase in plastic deposition in the post-World War II years can be used as a geological proxy for the Great Acceleration of the Anthropocene in the sedimentary record.