Second massive garbage patch found in the Pacific Ocean
Digital Reporter
Friday, July 28, 2017, 9:37 - A team of American research oceanographers are currently analyzing the contents of a large patch of plastic garbage floating in the world’s largest ocean – and it is not the first discovery of its kind.
Captain Charles Moore, Oceanographer and founder of Algalita Marine Research and Educatoin, was first to discover what is widely known as the Pacific Garbage Patch in the north Pacific Ocean. Now, Moore and his team have discovered the patches southern counterpart: an enormous accumulation of small plastic debris, which, he tells Research Gate, could be more than a million square kilometres in size.
The South Pacific patch was discovered within the South Pacfic Subtropical gyre - a large circular system of currents, which has the potential to trap ocean garbage and debris. During a six month research expedition off the coasts of Chile and the Easter Island, mean to learn more about ocean pollution, Moore and his team set out to determine the degree of the pollution from which the ocean was suffering, as well as the influence the pollution had on the ocean's biodiversity.
See more photos of the debris below:
Source: Captain Charles James Moore | Agalita Marine Research and Education | Research Gate | National Geographic [Thumbnail Credit]