Dispersion, Accumulation, and the Ultimate Fate of Microplastics in Deep-Marine Environments: A Review and Future Directions

Kane, Ian A.; Clare, Michael

doi:10.3389/feart.2019.00080

Cited by 304 publications

(173 citation statements)

References 247 publications

(380 reference statements)

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“…With the growing attention on marine plastic debris by scientists and the public alike, there has been a plethora of scientific reviews in the last few years (e.g. Andrady 2011, Law 2017, Zhang 2017, Hardesty et al 2017a, Kane and Clare 2019, Maximenko et al 2019, Amaral-Zettler et al 2020, Hale et al 2020. However, none of these reviews focus exclusively on the physical processes that control the transport and the resulting distribution of plastic debris on all spatial scales, ranging from the ocean gyres to beaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

Sebille

Aliani

Law

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

573

267

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Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (both in situ and in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales. Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 023003 E van Sebille et al Environ. Res. Lett. 15 (2020) 023003 E van Sebille et al References Acha E M, Mianzan H W, Iribarne O, Gagliardini D A, Lasta C and Daleo P 2003 The role of the Rı́o de la Plata bottom salinity front in accumulating debris Mar. Pollut. Bull. 46 197-202 Acha E M, Piola A, Iribarne O and Mianzan H 2015 Ecological Processes at Marine Fronts: Oases in the Ocean (Berlin: Springer) Aliani S and Molcard A 2003 Hitch-hiking on floating marine debris: macrobenthic species in the Western Mediterranean Sea Hydrobiologia 503 59-67 Allen J 1985 Principles of Physical Sedimentology (Berlin: Springer) Alpers W 1985 Theory of radar imaging of internal waves Nature 314 245-7 Alsina J M and Cáceres I 2011 Sediment suspension events in the inner surf and swash zone. Measurements in large-scale and high-energy wave conditions Coast. Eng. 58

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

Sebille

Aliani

Law

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

573

267

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“…Turbidity currents are underwater gravitydriven flows that transport large amounts of sediment to the deep sea (Normark, 1970). They play an important role in global carbon cycling and sequestration (Galy et al, 2007), bring nutrients to deep-sea ecosystems (Khripounoff et al, 2012), transport microplastics downslope (Kane and Clare, 2019), and can pose a hazard for seafloor infrastructure (Carter et al, 2014). More-over, their deposits can host reservoirs for hydrocarbons (Mayall et al, 2006) and can be used as archives for paleoclimatic reconstructions (Bonneau et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Channel-levee evolution in combined contour current–turbidity current flows from flume-tank experiments

Miramontes

Eggenhuisen

Jacinto

et al. 2020

Geology

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Turbidity currents and contour currents are common sedimentary and oceanographic processes in deep-marine settings that affect continental margins worldwide. Their simultaneous interaction can form asymmetric and unidirectionally migrating channels, which can lead to opposite interpretations of paleocontour current direction: channels migrating against the contour current or in the direction of the contour current. In this study, we performed three-dimensional flume-tank experiments of the synchronous interaction between contour currents and turbidity currents to understand the effect of these combined currents on channel architecture and evolution. Our results show that contour currents with a velocity of 10–19 cm s−1 can substantially deflect the direction of turbidity currents with a maximum velocity of 76–96 cm s−1, and modify the channel-levee system architecture. A lateral and nearly stationary front formed on the levee located upstream of the contour current, reduced overspill and thus restrained the development of a levee on this side of the channel. Sediment was preferentially carried out of the channel at the flank located downstream of the contour current. An increase in contour-current velocity resulted in an increase in channel-levee asymmetry, with the development of a wider levee and more abundant bedforms downstream of the contour current. This asymmetric deposition along the channel suggests that the direction of long-term migration of the channel form should go against the direction of the contour current due to levee growth downstream of the contour current, in agreement with one of the previously proposed conceptual models.

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“…In addition, temporal constraints on submarine-channel evolution are fundamentally important to understanding the timing and magnitude of downstream sediment and chemical transport to deep-sea fans versus deposition within submarine-slope channels. For example, evolutionary phase durations could be applied to predict how long large, unfilled slope systems (such as the Congo Canyon, offshore southwestern Africa) will transfer material to downslope submarine fans, which currently act as large sinks for sediment, organic carbon, and/or debris (e.g., microplastics) that impact ecological communities (Van Cauwenberghe et al, 2013;Stetten et al, 2015;Kane and Clare, 2019).…”

Section: ■ Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of submarine slope-channel systems: Timing of incision, bypass, and aggradation in Late Cretaceous Nanaimo Group channel-system strata, British Columbia, Canada

et al. 2019

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Submarine channel systems convey terrestrially derived detritus from shallow-marine environments to some of the largest sediment accumulations on Earth, submarine fans. The stratigraphic record of submarine slope channels includes heterogeneous, composite deposits that provide evidence for erosion, sediment bypass, and deposition. However, the timing and duration of these processes is poorly constrained over geologic time scales. We integrate geochronology with detailed stratigraphic characterization to temporally constrain the stratigraphic evolution recorded by horizontally to vertically aligned channel-fill stacking patterns in a Nanaimo Group channel system exposed on Hornby and Denman Islands, British Columbia, Canada. Twelve detrital zircon samples (n = 300/sample) were used to calculate maximum depositional ages, which identified a new age range for the succession from ca. 79 to 63 Ma. We document five phases of submarine-channel evolution over 16.0 ± 1.7 m.y. including: an initial phase dominated by incision, sediment bypass, and limited deposition (phase 1); followed by increasingly shorter and more rapid phases of deposition on the slope by laterally migrating (phase 2) and aggrading channels (phase 3); a long period of deep incision (phase 4); and a final rapid phase of vertical channel aggradation (phase 5). Our results suggest that ∼60% of the evolutionary history of the submarine channel system is captured in an incomplete, poorly preserved record of incision and sediment bypass, which makes up <20% of outcropping stratigraphy. Our findings are applicable to interpreting submarine channel-system evolution in ancient and modern settings worldwide and fundamentally important to understanding long-term sediment dispersal in the deep sea.

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Dispersion, Accumulation, and the Ultimate Fate of Microplastics in Deep-Marine Environments: A Review and Future Directions

Cited by 304 publications

References 247 publications

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

Channel-levee evolution in combined contour current–turbidity current flows from flume-tank experiments

The evolution of submarine slope-channel systems: Timing of incision, bypass, and aggradation in Late Cretaceous Nanaimo Group channel-system strata, British Columbia, Canada

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