BBC 英语学习 新闻词汇 Record levels of microplastics discovered on the ocean seabed

A simulation of the deep ocean.

This experiment in a large

tank in a lab in the Netherlands shows how ocean currents push mounds of sediment across the sea floor.

Mixed into those mounds

are millions of tiny pieces of plastic.

And scientists have now measured the extent of this seabed pollution.

We are all aware about the plastic that is floating in the ocean, but this only represents 1% of the whole amount.

The rest is somewhere in the deep sea.

We found in this area the highest accumulations ever reported in India, global oceans.

And they are 1.9 million particles, pieces of small pieces per is for me.

So we are going to scoop up those fine sediments that are all brought into suspension studies In 2000 and s by some of the same researchers revealed just how much plastic pollution was locked in UK river beds then flushed out to sea during floods.

These latest experiments in the Mediterranean extracted whole chunks of sea floor from depths of up to a kilometer, that enabled scientists to track how the currents carry plastic waste out, to see where it breaks down.

The deep currents then accumulate these millions of fragments into what researchers call micro plastic hot spots.

The majority of the particles they found were tiny fibres from textiles and clothing that simply slip through the filtration systems in wastewater treatment plants we were filling in after the gaps in our understanding of this missing 99% of the plastic.

There are fragile ecosystems on the sea floor which depend on the nutrients and oxygen which have been flushed by these ocean currents.

These currents are transporting micro plastics to the same places that these fragile ecosystems exist.

Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, in another study published this week, revealed that plastic pollution was reaching the shores of some of the most remote islands.

In recent years, we finally started to see the impact that our plastic waste has on the oceans.

This research has started to uncover the invisible, long term consequences.

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