Crustaceans Living In The Deepest Parts Of The Sea Have Been Ingesting Micro Plastics

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It has been discovered that the marine life living in the deepest part of the earth’s oceans have in one way, or the other, consumed micro plastics. 

Newcastle University scientists have been doing research about the guts of amphipods, which are crustaceans of shrimp-like form of over 9,900 species found in the world. They collected samples from six different deep trenches ranging from 23,000 – 36,000 feet (7,000 – 11,000 meters) deep all located along the pacific rim such as in Peru, Chile and Japan.  


Source: https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/

72% of all amphipods studied contained at least one micro particle in their bodies from plastics, synthetic materials, or natural fibers. In the Marianas Trench, which is the deepest part of the ocean, absolutely all amphipods that were studied was claimed to have ingested plastic. 

Scientists have claimed that all these micro plastics that were found in deep sea creatures are passed on to the other organisms higher up in the food chain that eat them, hence it being transferred to humans as well at some point. 


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Alan Jamieson, a Newcastle University study author said: “If you contaminate a river, it can be flushed clean. If you contaminate a coastline, it can be diluted by the tides. But, in the deepest point of the oceans, it just sits there.” 

Since this ongoing problem of micro plastics pollution is found in the deepest of the oceans, scientists are worried that all newly discovered deep sea species will never be studied in their natural state before the contamination.  

“We have no baseline to measure them against. Their is no data about them in their pristine state. The more you think about it, the more depressing it is,” says Alan Jamieson.

 

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