Few places on earth are as isolated and untouched as Trindade Island, a volcanic formation in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean about three or four days’ sailing off the coast of Brazil. A place that has not yet entered human habitation and is 1,200 kilometers from the mainland. In theory, it’s perfect heaven. And yet This pristine place already has the dubious distinction of being the furthest place on Earth where rocks are made of moss. plastic.
When geologist Fernanda Avelar Santos went to the island in 2019 to do her doctoral thesis on a completely different topic, she found rocks made of plastic trash for the first time: landslides, erosion and other geological hazards.
I was doing research near a protected nature reserve known as Turtle Beach, which is the world’s largest nursery for endangered green turtles. came upon a large ledge of strange-looking blue-green rocks. Intrigued, he took some samples back to his lab at the end of his research.
By analyzing them, he and his team described these rocks as: a new type of geological formation in which a new component emerges: plastic garbage.
“We conclude that man now acts as a geological agent“It’s affecting processes that were once completely natural, such as rock formation,” he said.
“This fits with the idea of the Anthropocene that scientists talk about a lot these days: the geological age of humans influencing the natural processes of the planet. This type of rock-like plastic will be preserved in the geological record and will mark the Anthropocene.”
The discovery “disturbed” himHe accepted Santos, a professor at the Federal University of Paraná in southern Brazil.
The researcher describes Trindade as “a paradise”: a beautiful tropical island whose remoteness makes it a haven for all kinds of species: seabirds, fish only found there, extinct crabs, green turtles.
The only human presence on the South Atlantic island is a small Brazilian military base and a scientific research center. “It’s a great place,” he said.
“For this reason It was so scary to find something like this, and one of the most ecologically important beaches,” he complained.
To deepen this sad discovery, the researcher returned to the island late last year to collect more samples. Continuing his research, he found rock-like plastic formations previously reported in places like Hawaii, England, Italy and Japan since 2014.
innovation is that Trindade Island is the farthest place on the planet where these elements have ever been found.aforementioned.
That’s why Fernanda Avelar Santos fears that as the rocks erode, microplastics will seep into the environment and further contaminate the island’s food chain.
Three different types of plastic rock
Research by Avelar Santos and his team is published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletindivided the new types of “rock” found worldwide into several types: ‘plastigglomerates’ similar to sedimentary rocks; ‘pyroplastics’ resembling clastic rocks; and ‘plastistones’, a previously unidentified species similar to volcanic rocks formed by lava flows.
“Marine pollution is causing a paradigm shift in the concepts of rock and sedimentary deposit formations,” his team wrote. “Human interference is now so pervasive that it is necessary to question what is truly natural”.
The main component in the rocks that Santos discovered were the remains of fishing nets.explained. But he added that ocean currents are dragging large volumes of bottles, household waste and other plastic waste from around the world to the island.
“Seeing how vulnerable this island is to the litter polluting our oceans shows how widespread the problem is around the world,” he explained.
Reference article: https://phys.org/news/2023-03-scientists-disturbing-remote-island-plastic.html
……..
Contact details of the environment department: [email protected]