Forums
Seawater Property Changes in the Southern Ocean

Juan, Hi. I'm Mike LeBaron, a PolarTRECer who will be in Antarctica in December or so. I've been enjoying your journals. It looks like you've generally had pretty good seas. I have a couple of quick question - As you work your way down to McMurdo against the West Wind Drift, how much trash do you see caught in the current? Also, have you done any samples that might let you identify the presence of "micro" plastic particles suspended in the water?

Have a great time and keep up the great journal entries.

Mike

Sun, 03/13/2011 - 13:28

Juan Botella

Hi Mike, congratulations on your upcoming trip to McMurdo. What will your project
be about? We have not see any floating trash anywhere around here, and we
do have a couple of systems that are constantly taking surface water for a
biological study. We have not encountered the tiny plastics.
My understanding is that there are no rivers nearby that would dump the
plastic, and the current system does not favor the transport of plastic
from the continents down here. It also has to do with the less amount of
continent on the Southern Hemisphere, which limits human activities. The
subtropical gyres, where the Sargasso Sea is, is where we find a
convergence of surface water that collects the macro-algae (Sargasso sea)
as well as floating debris.
I look forward to knowing about your project.
Juan.