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The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf

Microplastics are widely dispersed throughout the marine environment. An understanding of the distribution and accumulation of this form of pollution is crucial for gauging environmental risk. Presented here is the first record of plastic contamination, in the 5 mm–250 μm size range, of Irish contin...

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Autores principales: Martin, Jake, Lusher, Amy, Thompson, Richard C., Morley, Audrey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28883417
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-11079-2
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author Martin, Jake
Lusher, Amy
Thompson, Richard C.
Morley, Audrey
author_facet Martin, Jake
Lusher, Amy
Thompson, Richard C.
Morley, Audrey
author_sort Martin, Jake
collection PubMed
description Microplastics are widely dispersed throughout the marine environment. An understanding of the distribution and accumulation of this form of pollution is crucial for gauging environmental risk. Presented here is the first record of plastic contamination, in the 5 mm–250 μm size range, of Irish continental shelf sediments. Sixty-two microplastics were recovered from 10 of 11 stations using box cores. 97% of recovered microplastics were found to reside shallower than 2.5 cm sediment depth, with the area of highest microplastic concentration being the water-sediment interface and top 0.5 cm of sediments (66%). Microplastics were not found deeper than 3.5 ± 0.5 cm. These findings demonstrate that microplastic contamination is ubiquitous within superficial sediments and bottom water along the western Irish continental shelf. Results highlight that cores need to be at least 4–5 cm deep to quantify the standing stock of microplastics within marine sediments. All recovered microplastics were classified as secondary microplastics as they appear to be remnants of larger items; fibres being the principal form of microplastic pollution (85%), followed by broken fragments (15%). The range of polymer types, colours and physical forms recovered suggests a variety of sources. Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms influencing microplastic transport, deposition, resuspension and subsequent interactions with biota.
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spelling pubmed-55898892017-09-13 The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf Martin, Jake Lusher, Amy Thompson, Richard C. Morley, Audrey Sci Rep Article Microplastics are widely dispersed throughout the marine environment. An understanding of the distribution and accumulation of this form of pollution is crucial for gauging environmental risk. Presented here is the first record of plastic contamination, in the 5 mm–250 μm size range, of Irish continental shelf sediments. Sixty-two microplastics were recovered from 10 of 11 stations using box cores. 97% of recovered microplastics were found to reside shallower than 2.5 cm sediment depth, with the area of highest microplastic concentration being the water-sediment interface and top 0.5 cm of sediments (66%). Microplastics were not found deeper than 3.5 ± 0.5 cm. These findings demonstrate that microplastic contamination is ubiquitous within superficial sediments and bottom water along the western Irish continental shelf. Results highlight that cores need to be at least 4–5 cm deep to quantify the standing stock of microplastics within marine sediments. All recovered microplastics were classified as secondary microplastics as they appear to be remnants of larger items; fibres being the principal form of microplastic pollution (85%), followed by broken fragments (15%). The range of polymer types, colours and physical forms recovered suggests a variety of sources. Further research is needed to understand the mechanisms influencing microplastic transport, deposition, resuspension and subsequent interactions with biota. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5589889/ /pubmed/28883417 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-11079-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Martin, Jake
Lusher, Amy
Thompson, Richard C.
Morley, Audrey
The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf
title The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf
title_full The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf
title_fullStr The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf
title_full_unstemmed The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf
title_short The Deposition and Accumulation of Microplastics in Marine Sediments and Bottom Water from the Irish Continental Shelf
title_sort deposition and accumulation of microplastics in marine sediments and bottom water from the irish continental shelf
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5589889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28883417
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-11079-2
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