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Pacific toy spill fuels ocean current pathways research
Abstract
While a container vessel was crossing the North Pacific Ocean along the great circle route from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Wash., severe storm conditions were encountered near the International Date Line on January 10,1992. At44.7°N, 178.1°E, twelve 12.2‐m containers were washed overboard, one of which held about 29,000 plastic bathtub toy animals (Figure 1). Some of the steel cargo containers may have been torn open by the vessel's stays as they fell overboard or may have been ruptured by collisions with other containers.
Ten months after the spill, plastic toys began showing up on beaches near Sitka, Alaska. According to computer simulations the toys drifted toward the southeast Alaska coast, past both the site where about 61,000 Nike shoes spilled from a boat in 1990 and Ocean Weather Station Papa, where many drift bottles have been released.
... T he worst-case scenario described above can be improved upon by turning to a hypothesis proposed by debris-tracker and oceanographer Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer for estimating the recovery of "tracers": As the distance from the tracer release point to the area of landfall increases, the percentage of tracers that are actually recovered on the beach will decrease. For distances greater than 1000 miles, Dr. Ebbesmeyer suggests a general estimate of about 2 percent of the initial number of tracers is likely to be recovered (Ebbesmeyer et al., 1994;Hiedorn, 2010). This rough estimate will be referred to below as the 2 percent axiom. ...
... In May of 1990, approximately 80,000 Nike shoes were accidentally lost from a container ship about 500 miles south of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and 1,600 miles northwest of Washington state ( Figure 1). Approximately 1,600 (2.6 percent) of those shoes had been recovered and confirmed from the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon and Washington by 1994, with unconfirmed reports of thousands more (Ebbesmeyer et al., 1992(Ebbesmeyer et al., , 1994. Next, the recovery rate of 4,518 bottles released between 1957 and 1959 at Ocean Station Papa, an oceanographic monitoring station (Figure 1), was 2.7 percent by 1992 (Ebbesmeyer et al., 1992). ...
... Of a second series of drift bottle releases (N=663) occurring between 1960 and 1966, a total of 16 (2.4 percent) were recovered by 1994 (Ebbesmeyer et al., 1994). Finally, another Table 1. ...
The Japanese government estimates that approximately 5
million tons of debris washed out to sea after the Tōhoku
tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011. Of that mass,
about 1.5 million tons probably floated away from the near-
coastal environment and could be transported to the beaches
fringing the northeast Pacific Ocean, including the coast of
Washington state. The debris has been difficult to track and
represents a potential human and environmental hazard that
results in concern about the type and volume of tsunami-gen
-
erated materials that may wash ashore over the next few years.
This analysis uses evidence from oceanographic studies and
models to identify likely pathways and sinks for debris and
estimate the fraction that might land in Washington. Results
suggest that at least 75 percent of the floating debris will not
make landfall and will end up in the Pacific Sub-Tropical
Convergence Zone. The remaining debris may make landfall,
and observations suggest that most is likely to land along the
coast of Alaska over multiple years as debris is entrained in and
redistributed from the Sub-Arctic Gyre. In Washington, this
analysis suggests that most of the debris that makes landfall
will do so relatively rapidly (within 3-4 years). It is unlikely,
however, that all of the debris will come ashore in any one year.
We estimate that no more than 138,000 tons is likely to land
along the coast of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia
in any single year, with 11,000 tons as a more probable amount.
I
f distributed evenly along the full length of tidal shoreline, this
mass of debris would amount to between 0.5 and 6.7 tons/mile
of beach, or about 1-13 times the current estimated “baseline”
debris delivery to the outer coast of Washington state. Addition
-
ally, we estimate that this elevated level of debris accumulation
will occur for a relatively short amount of time (1-2 years). Indi
-
vidual beaches may receive significantly more or less accumu
-
lation due to local oceanographic effects. While it is likely that
tsunami debris will continue to make landfall for years to come,
the levels of accumulation in Washington will probably not
appreciably exceed the existing debris baseline beyond 2015.
... Spill incidents on the one hand can be detrimental for the environment, on the other hand they also present a unique opportunity for plastic pollution research. Incidents of plastic spills regularly occur at sea [14] and spilled macroplastic items that have been studied include inkjet cartridges [15], Lego [16], and plastic bath toys [17,18]. Analyzing the pathways of these items contributes to the understanding of ocean drift patterns, material transport pathways, and also plastic degradation rates. ...
During the July 2021 European floods approximately eight million empty dairy packaging (buttertubs) were flushed from a dairy processing facility in Belgium into the Vesdre river. Some were transported further downstream, into the Ourthe river and eventually the Meuse river. There are many unknowns when it comes to plastic transport in rivers, especially in response to floods. We therefore used this incident as an unique opportunity to study these buttertubs as a tracer for plastic transport dynamics in a riverine environment in response to an extreme flood event. Normally, it is unknown when and where individual plastic items found on riverbanks entered the environment. In this case, however, the ID stamps on the buttertups allowed for them to be traced back to the flooding of the factory. We studied the transport and deposition of these buttertubs in the Dutch Meuse over 2 years following the flood. We also collected buttertubs at different points in time to investigate their fragmentation and mass loss. Within 3 weeks of the flood, the buttertubs were transported up to 328 km from the spilling location. Overall, the majority (78%) of buttertubs we found within the first 3 weeks were deposited within less than 100 km of the point of emission. Over the following 2 years, the mean transport distance of the found buttertubs moved downstream from 100 km in July/August 2021, to 153 km in July 2023. The buttertubs average transport velocity decreased from 11.7 km/d within the first 3 weeks, to 0.2 km/d by July 2023. Based on the 89 buttertubs we collected and analyzed in detail over the 2 years, we did not find a significant mass loss. Of all 89 buttertubs found, 47 showed cracks and only 12 appeared to have pieces missing. This study shows that even during extreme flood events, the majority of spilled plastic litter is retained within a limited distance after being emitted into the river. The findings of this study can be utilized to improve plastic transport modelling, and overall better understand plastic transport in the freshwater environment.
... A difficult job that has traditionally been taken into consideration to prevent marine debris, such as plastics from attaching to the seaweeds and tracking floating objects in the ocean (Van Sebille et al. 2020) and oil spills (Liu et al. 2011). Global drifting networks have been employed by researchers (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 1994), including satellite measurements (Mulet et al. 2012), models, and even accidental spills, to map out the seasonality of global currents and changes in seaweeds. The capacity to foresee potential algal biomass yield along the floating technology is crucial for achieving a large-scale and fiscally feasible seaweed production method. ...
Algae are a diverse group of micro- and macroscopic, highly efficient photosynthetic organisms with rapid growth and flourish in a variety of environments where many land plants are uninhabitable. Algal biomass contains a wide range of biochemical components such as pigments, lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins (known as phycochemicals), making them a promising and renewable feedstock for different industrial/commercial applications such as biofuels, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, and environmental sectors. The potential of algae as a renewable and eco-friendly bioresource has received much attention in recent years and made it the most promising and sustainable source of useful products. The general requirements for successful algae cultivation include many growth factors such as nutrients, temperature, light, pH, and different cultivation systems. There are two main cultivation systems used widely for algae cultivation, namely open raceway ponds (OWPs) and closed photobioreactors (PBRs). Each one of these systems has a series of advantages and disadvantages. This chapter will discuss the different cultivation systems used for seaweeds and microalgae for biomass production, including OWPs, PBRs, and mixed systems. Also, the pros and cons of each system will be evaluated. The natural growth and distribution of seaweeds, as well as recent advancements in seaweed farming technologies, will be discussed.
... Marine pollution is globally recognised as one of the great environmental issues our society is currently facing, with world-leading NGOs warning us that "plastic waste is flooding our oceans (Hancock, 2019)" and launching campaigns to fight "the ocean plastic crisis" (Weyler, 2017). Ocean waters have been contaminated in the last few decades by a range of man-made pollutants, from oil spills to rubber ducks (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994). Among all these, plastic has received significant attention in the media. ...
Understanding the physical mechanisms behind the transport and accumulation of floating objects in the ocean is crucial to efficiently tackle the issue of marine pollution. The main sinks of marine plastic are the coast and the bottom sediment. This study focuses on the former, investigating the timescales of dispersal from the ocean surface and onto coastal accumulation areas through a process called “beaching.” Previous studies found that the Stokes drift can reach the same magnitude as the Eulerian current speed and that it has a long-term effect on the trajectories of floating objects. Two particle tracking models (PTMs) are carried out and then compared, one with and one without Stokes drift, named PTM-SD and PTM-REF, respectively. Eulerian velocity and Stokes drift data from global reanalysis datasets are used for particle advection. Particles in the PTM-SD model are found to beach at a yearly rate that is double the rate observed in PTM-REF. The main coastal attractors are consistent with the direction of large-scale atmospheric circulation (Westerlies and Trade Winds). After 12 years (at the end of the run), the amount of beached particles is 20% larger in PTM-SD than in PTM-REF. Long-term predictions carried out with the aid of adjacency matrices found that after 100 years all particles have beached in PTM-SD, while 8% of the all seeded particles are still floating in PTM-REF. The results confirm the need to accurately represent the Stokes drift in particle models attempting to predict the behaviour of marine debris, in order to avoid overestimation of its residence time in the ocean and effectively guide policies toward prevention and removal.
... Large ocean basins are some of the least explored parts of the world and we know almost nothing about their inhabitants such as benthic animals [182]. For a long time, these areas were postulated to be only muddy deserts, but they revealed to be great reservoirs of biodiversity [183,184] with strong connections to the surface [185,186]. To assess their real biodiversity, extensive and well-preserved material for morphological and molecular studies is needed. ...
Phyllodocida is a clade of errantiate annelids characterized by having ventral sensory palps, anterior enlarged cirri, axial muscular proboscis, compound chaetae (if present) with a single ligament, and of lacking dorsolateral folds. Members of most families date back to the Carboniferous, although the earliest fossil was dated from the Devonian. Phyllodocida holds 27 well-established and morphologically homogenous clades ranked as families, gathering more than 4600 currently accepted nominal species. Among them, Syllidae and Polynoidae are the most specious polychaete groups. Species of Phyllodocida are mainly found in the marine benthos, although a few inhabit freshwater, terrestrial and planktonic environments, and occur from intertidal to deep waters in all oceans. In this review, we (1) explore the current knowledge on species diversity trends (based on traditional species concept and molecular data), phylogeny, ecology, and geographic distribution for the whole group, (2) try to identify the main knowledge gaps, and (3) focus on selected families: Alciopidae, Goniadidae, Glyceridae, Iospilidae, Lopadorrhynchidae, Polynoidae, Pontodoridae, Nephtyidae, Sphaerodoridae, Syllidae, Tomopteridae, Typhloscolecidae, and Yndolaciidae. The highest species richness is concentrated in European, North American, and Australian continental shelves (reflecting a strong sampling bias). While most data come from shallow coastal and surface environments most world oceans are clearly under-studied. The overall trends indicate that new descriptions are constantly added through time and that less than 10% of the known species have molecular barcode information available. Citation: Martin, D.; Aguado, M.T.; Fernández Álamo, M.A.; Britayev, T.A.; Böggemann, M.; Capa, M.; Faulwetter, S.; Fukuda, M.V.; Helm, C.; Petti, M.A.V.; et al. On the Diversity of Phyllodocida (Annelida: Errantia), with a Focus on Glyceridae, Goniadidae, Nephtyi-dae, Polynoidae, Sphaerodoridae, Syllidae and the Holoplanktonic Families. Diversity 2021, 13, 131.
... Large ocean basins are some of the least explored parts of the world and we know almost nothing about their inhabitants such as benthic animals [182]. For a long time, these areas were postulated to be only muddy deserts, but they revealed to be great reservoirs of biodiversity [183,184] with strong connections to the surface [185,186]. To assess their real biodiversity, extensive and well-preserved material for morphological and molecular studies is needed. ...
Phyllodocida is a clade of errantiate annelids characterized by having ventral sensory palps, anterior enlarged cirri, axial muscular proboscis, compound chaetae (if present) with a single ligament, and of lacking dorsolateral folds. Members of most families date back to the Carboniferous, although the earliest fossil was dated from the Devonian. Phyllodocida holds 27 well-established and morphologically homogenous clades ranked as families, gathering more than 4600 currently accepted nominal species. Among them, Syllidae and Polynoidae are the most specious polychaete groups. Species of Phyllodocida are mainly found in the marine benthos, although a few inhabit freshwater, terrestrial and planktonic environments, and occur from intertidal to deep waters in all oceans. In this review, we (1) explore the current knowledge on species diversity trends (based on traditional species concept and molecular data), phylogeny, ecology, and geographic distribution for the whole group, (2) try to identify the main knowledge gaps, and (3) focus on selected families: Alciopidae, Goniadidae, Glyceridae, Iospilidae, Lopadorrhynchidae, Polynoidae, Pontodoridae, Nephtyidae, Sphaerodoridae, Syllidae, Tomopteridae, Typhloscolecidae, and Yndolaciidae. The highest species richness is concentrated in European, North American, and Australian continental shelves (reflecting a strong sampling bias). While most data come from shallow coastal and surface environments most world oceans are clearly under-studied. The overall trends indicate that new descriptions are constantly added through time and that less than 10% of the known species have molecular barcode information available.
... Repeatedly, large amounts of lost cargo are also released into the environment. An example of this are 28,000 bath toys such as rubber ducks, which were introduced into the Pacific ocean in 1992 when a container went overboard and are still being washed up on the coasts in, for example, Alaska, Australia, and Scotland [79]. Due to the material's durability, these so-called 'friendly floatees' are almost unaltered when washed up on the coast. ...
With the focus on microplastic in current research, macroplastic is often not further considered. Thus, this review paper is the first to analyse the entry paths, accumulation zones, and sinks of macroplastic in the aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric environment by presenting transport paths and concentrations in the environment as well as related risks. This is done by applying the Source-Pathway-Receptor model on macroplastic in the environment. Based on this model, the life cycle of macroplastic is structurally described, and knowledge gaps are identified. Hence, current research aspects on macroplastic as well as a sound delimitation between macro-and microplastic that can be applied to future research are indicated. The results can be used as basic information for further research and show a qualitative assessment of the impact of macroplastic that ends up in the environment and accumulates there. Furthermore, the applied model allows for the first time a quantitative and structured approach to macroplastic in the environment.
... Debris in the ocean contributed toward an understanding of the ocean's surface currents during the 19th century [1]. Satellite-tracked buoys, which transmitted positions daily over intervals of months to a few years and message in bottles (MIBs), were widely used during the 1950s for surface current measurements [2]. ...
This article explains the first attempt on implementation of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) based NavIC satellite position acquisition receiver module in a Lagrangian drifting buoy (DB). Presently, most of ocean observation systems developed by the international community use US satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver for acquiring geo-position and time synchronization applications. The ESSO-National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has attempted and built INSAT-based DBs interfaced with Indian-made NavIC satellite receiver modules operating using IRNSS satellite constellations and carried out extensive laboratory and field validations. This IRNSS-based satellite receiver technology is fully planned, developed, established and controlled by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Department of Space. It is designed to provide accurate geo-positional information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from the Indian terrestrial boundary. NavIC L5 signal ensures that a single point positional accuracy of ±2.5 m is obtained. The implementation and successful demonstration of an Indian-made IRNSS-NavIC satellite receiver module would eventually lead to the replacement of the existing GPS gadgets, making the DB a complete indigenous product. The DBs are deployed to measure sea surface temperature and ocean current. A unique attempt with NavIC satellite receiver module to have near real-time data every hour is achieved and the results of the recent field deployment carried out in Bay of Bengal (BoB) is presented in this paper.
... microbial action) processes which degrade and break up larger items into smaller, including < 5 mm microplastics (Thompson et al., 2004;Andrady, 2011;Isobe et al., 2014). Due to their lightness and subsequent floatability plastics, and especially microplastics, can be transported very far from entry points by ocean currents (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994) before finally sinking to the deep seafloor (Woodall et al., 2014). ...
Pollution by large-sized plastics and microplastic debris is widespread in all Earth environments, also threatening marine ecosystems worldwide. In this study we determine the load of microplastics in the Western Mediterranean Sea and evaluate their aggregation potential into marine aggregates. We report average microplastic abundances of 0.10 ± 0.09 items m⁻² (max: 0.50 items m⁻²). Abundances and chemical composition of microplastics are subject to temporal changes as a function of human activities in the areas of influence and shifting meteorological and sea-state conditions. We find that microplastics were on average smaller in mass than other studies conducted in the Mediterranean Sea indicating longer exposure times in the environment. The microplastic aggregation potential was determined by inspecting formed biogenic aggregates either during sample collection or in the laboratory. Smaller and more angular microplastics dominated in marine aggregates, representing an average 40% in abundance and 25% in mass of microplastics.
... Scientists tracked where the toys washed up to study the oceans currents, ten months later they started to wash up on beaches. They anticipated that by the year 2000 a few of the toys will have been transported to many oceanic locations in the Northern Hemisphere (Ebbesmeyer & Ingraham 1994). ...
The main objectives of the small scale funding agreement and UNEP for the literature study “Gender and Plastics Management” are: to conduct research on the links between gender and plastics consumption and production, with focus on the impacts of the chemicals used in plastic production on human health, as well as the roles of women and men as agents of change in reducing the impacts of plastics on the environment (especially marine environment) and human health.
... The best example for this is definitely the journey of some 29000 rubber duckies lost at sea from a shipping container in 1992 which kept travelling through the world ocean for the next two decades. They have become the symbol of the close relationship existing between floating litter distribution and the global circulation dynamics (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 1994; the same authors in 1992 studied the voyage of about 80000 sneakers around the Pacific Ocean, Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1992;Ebbesmeyer et al., 2007). Large scale media interest in the accumulation of oceanic debris began in 2001 through the efforts of Moore et al. (2001) who presented data showing that in the North Pacific Gyre, plastic was more abundant than plankton by as much as 6:1. ...
... How much litter is released from a certain area depends on the type and intensity of anthropogenic activities (e.g. industry, fishing, aquaculture), on the efficiency of waste disposal and treatment facilities, and on the frequency of accidental releases caused by natural or anthropogenic disasters (hurricanes, shipwrecks etc.) (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994;Derraik, 2002;Doong et al., 2011;Browne, 2015). ...
Plastic debris and other floating materials endanger severely marine ecosystems. When they carry attached biota they can be a cause of biological invasions whose extent and intensity is not known yet. This article focuses on knowledge gaps and research priorities needed for, first, understanding and then preventing dispersal of alien invasive species attached to marine litter.
... Our results mirror the data from unintended, often tragic, natural experiments that quantify analogous connectivity in the Pacific Ocean. Large quantities of shoes 27 and toys 28 washed overboard from container ships en route from Asia to North America have been useful in estimating connectivity times by acting as drifters. ...
Planktonic communities are shaped through a balance of local evolutionary adaptation and ecological succession driven in large part by migration. The timescales over which these processes operate are still largely unresolved. Here we use Lagrangian particle tracking and network theory to quantify the timescale over which surface currents connect different regions of the global ocean. We find that the fastest path between two patches-each randomly located anywhere in the surface ocean-is, on average, less than a decade. These results suggest that marine planktonic communities may keep pace with climate change-increasing temperatures, ocean acidification and changes in stratification over decadal timescales-through the advection of resilient types.
... Nevertheless, microplastics harbor the risk of transporting POPs to human food . Because of their long residence time at sea plastics can travel long distances (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 1994) and thus function as vectors for dispersal of toxins and/or pathogenic microorganisms . However, although the potential risks associated with marine microplastics have recently been acknowledged the manifold impacts of microplastics on the ecosystems of the oceans have not been investigated in detail and are thus only poorly understood. ...
Identifying and eliminating the sources of microplastic to habitats is crucial to reducing the social, environmental and economic impacts of this form of debris. Although eliminating sources of pollution is a fundamental component of environmental policy in the U.S.A. and Europe, the sources of microplastic and their pathways into habitats remain poorly understood compared to other persistent, bioaccumulative and/or toxic substances (i.e. priority pollutants; EPA in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2010–2014 Pollution Prevention (P2) Program Strategic Plan. Washington, USA, pp. 1–34, 2010; EU in Official J Eur Union L334:17–119, 2010). This chapter reviews our understanding of sources and pathways of microplastic, appraises terminology, and outlines future directions for meaningfully integrating research, managerial actions and policy to understand and reduce the infiltration of microplastic to habitats. © 2015, Springer International Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
... Nevertheless, microplastics harbor the risk of transporting POPs to human food (Engler 2012). Because of their long residence time at sea plastics can travel long distances (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 1994) and thus function as vectors for dispersal of toxins and/or pathogenic microorganisms (Harrison et al. 2011;Zettler et al. 2013). However, although the potential risks associated with marine microplastics have recently been acknowledged the manifold impacts of microplastics on the ecosystems of the oceans have not been investigated in detail and are thus only poorly understood. ...
Microplastics in aquatic ecosystems and especially in the marine environment represent a pollution of increasing scientific and societal concern, thus, recently a substantial number of studies on microplastics were published. Although first steps towards a standardization of methodologies used for the detection and identification of microplastics in environmental samples are made, the comparability of data on microplastics is currently hampered by a huge variety of different methodologies, which result in the generation of data of extremely different quality and resolution. This chapter reviews the methodology presently used for assessing the concentration of microplastics in the marine environment with a focus on the most convenient techniques and approaches. After an overview of non-selective sampling approaches, sample processing and treatment in the laboratory, the reader is introduced to the currently applied techniques for the identification and quantification of microplastics. The subsequent case study on microplastics in sediment samples from the North Sea measured with focal plane array (FPA)-based micro-Fourier transform infrared (micro-FTIR) spectroscopy shows that only 1.4 % of the particles visually resembling microplastics were of synthetic polymer origin. This finding emphasizes the importance of verifying the synthetic polymer origin of potential microplastics. Thus, a burning issue concerning current microplastic research is the generation of standards that allow for the assessment of reliable data on concentrations of microscopic plastic particles and the involved polymers with analytical laboratory techniques such as micro-FTIR or micro-Raman spectroscopy. © 2015, Springer International Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
... [33] In addition, because of their material properties many microplastic particles are buoyant and their durability enables them to travel long distances. [41] They can thus function as vectors for the dispersal of toxic or pathogenic microorganisms. [42][43][44] Although the potential risks of marine microplastics have recently been widely acknowledged, reliable data on concentrations of microplastics and the composition of involved polymers in the marine environment are lacking as there are no standard operation protocols (SOPs) for microplastic sampling and identification. ...
The pollution of the environment with microplastics (plastic pieces,5 mm) is a problem of increasing concern. However, although this has been generally recognised by scientists and authorities, the analysis of microplastics is often done by visual inspection alone with potentially high error rates, especially for smaller particles. Methods that allow for a fast and reliable analysis of microplastics enriched on filters are lacking. Our study is the first to fill this gap by using focal plane array detector-based micro-Fourier-transform infrared imaging for analysis of microplastics from environmental samples. As a result of our iteratively optimised analytical approach (concerning filter material, measuring mode, measurement parameters and identification protocol), we were able to successfully measure the whole surface (>10-mm diameter) of filters with microplastics from marine plankton and sediment samples. The measurement with a high lateral resolution allowed for the detection of particles down to a size of 20 mu m in only a fractional part of time needed for chemical mapping. The integration of three band regions facilitated the pre-selection of potential microplastics of the ten most important polymers. Subsequent to the imaging the review of the infrared spectra of the pre-selected potential microplastics was necessary for a verification of plastic polymer origin. The approach we present here is highly suitable to be implemented as a standard procedure for the analysis of small microplastics from environmental samples. However, a further automatisation with respect to measurement and subsequent particle identification would facilitate the even faster and fully automated analysis of microplastic samples.
... Scientists tracked where the toys washed up to study the oceans currents, ten months later they started to wash up on beaches. They anticipated that by the year 2000 a few of the toys will have been transported to many oceanic locations in the Northern Hemisphere (Ebbesmeyer & Ingraham 1994). ...
http://socwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/Women-and-Environment-factsheet-final_11.15.14.pdf
... As a proxy for seaweed rafting over long distances, several anthropogenic objects (e.g. oceanographic buoys, jettisoned cargo) have drifted from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic within a decade (Ebbesmeyer & Ingraham, 1994). Consequently, it is likely that long-range stepping-stone dispersal, coupled with oscillating trans-Arctic pathways and the LGM, have shaped the present phylogeographic structure of the circumpolar F. distichus. ...
Aim We examined the phylogeography of the cold-temperate macroalgal species Fucus distichus L., a key foundation species in rocky intertidal shores and the only Fucus species to occur naturally in both the North Pacific and the North Atlantic.
Location North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans (42° to 77° N).
Methods We genotyped individuals from 23 populations for a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) intergenic spacer (IGS) (n = 608) and the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) region (n = 276), as well as for six nuclear microsatellite loci (n = 592). Phylogeographic structure and connectivity were assessed using population genetic and phylogenetic network analyses.
Results IGS mtDNA haplotype diversity was highest in the North Pacific, and divergence between Pacific haplotypes was much older than that of the single cluster of Atlantic haplotypes. Two ancestral Pacific IGS/COI clusters led to a widespread Atlantic cluster. High mtDNA and microsatellite diversities were observed in Prince William Sound, Alaska, 11 years after severe disturbance by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Main conclusions At least two colonizations occurred from the older North Pacific populations to the North Atlantic between the opening of the Bering Strait and the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum. One colonization event was from the Japanese Archipelago/eastern Aleutians, and a second was from the Alaskan mainland around the Gulf of Alaska. Japanese populations probably arose from a single recolonization event from the eastern Aleutian Islands before the North Pacific–North Atlantic colonization. In the North Atlantic, the Last Glacial Maximum forced the species into at least two known glacial refugia: the Nova Scotia/Newfoundland (Canada) region and Andøya (northern Norway). The presence of two private haplotypes in the central Atlantic suggests the possibility of colonization from other refugia that are now too warm to support F. distichus. With the continuing decline in Arctic ice cover as a result of global climate change, renewed contact between North Pacific and North Atlantic populations of Fucus species is expected.
... – ) . Transport containers can contain several thousand pairs of shoes, televisions, or rubber ducks (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham 1994 ) ; these are generally buoyant, and therefore the container may open and discharge contents when waterlogged. The loss of containers at sea is primarily caused by heavy weather (42%) and collisions between ships (11%). ...
Plastics are one of the most widely used materials in the world; they are broadly integrated into today's lifestyle and make a major contribution to almost all product areas. The typical characteristics that render them so useful relate primarily to the fact that they are both flexible and durable. These characteristics are very useful when plastics are used in everyday life. But when plastics are discarded into the environment they can persist for very long periods of time. Because of their nearly indestructible morphology and the toxins they contain, plastics can seriously affect ecosystems (UNEP 2005).
... The Ocean Surface-Current Simulator (OSCURS), initially developed for fisheries studies (Wilderbuer et al., 2002;Duffy-Anderson et al., 2010), has been used to track marine debris in the North Pacific (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994;Ebbesmeyer et al., 2007;Pichel et al., 2007) and was employed in this project. This model uses daily values of sea-level pressure from the 6-hourly model of the US Navy Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center. ...
... The Ocean Surface-Current Simulator (OSCURS), initially developed for fisheries studies (Wilderbuer et al., 2002;Duffy-Anderson et al., 2010), has been used to track marine debris in the North Pacific (Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994;Ebbesmeyer et al., 2007;Pichel et al., 2007) and was employed in this project. This model uses daily values of sea-level pressure from the 6-hourly model of the US Navy Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center. ...
... [5] Existing studies have generally focused only on the inner shelf, not on the connections between inner-shelf and mid-shelf processes, but these connections may be of vital importance to the shore. Over scales of tens to thousands of kilometers, the motions of oil spills, bath toys, and the larvae of fish and invertebrates depend on coastal and ocean-scale circulation [Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham, 1994; Dever et al., 1998; Gaylord and Gaines, 2000]. However, transport over the inner shelf determines whether a given object actually hits the beach and may significantly affect our perceptions of larger scale processes . ...
copyrighted by American Geophysical Union We discuss connections between inner-shelf and mid-shelf circulation near Point Conception, California, as well as the wind forcing of inner-shelf circulation. Point Conception marks the southern edge of a major upwelling zone that extends from Oregon to central California. The coastline makes a sharp eastward turn at Point Conception, and the Santa Barbara Channel to the east is generally assumed to be an upwelling shadow. Consistent with this regional division, inner-shelf currents are strongly correlated with wind north of Point Conception, but not in the Santa Barbara Channel. One exception to this generalization is a location in the Santa Barbara Channel, near a pass that cuts through the coastal mountains, where local winds have a dominant cross-shore component and directly drive cross-shore currents over the inner shelf. Inner-shelf currents in the Santa Barbara Channel, when compared with mid-shelf currents in that area, are weaker, but strongly correlated. By contrast, inner-shelf currents north of Point Conception show a far greater incidence of poleward flow than is seen over the mid-shelf in that area. Poleward flow events, lasting 1–5 days, transport warm water from the Santa Barbara Channel around Point Conception to the central California coast. These events are associated with relaxation of the generally equatorward wind, but not always with mid-shelf flow reversals.
This study made use of four asynchronously coupled numerical simulations (four Eulerian and four Lagrangian) to investigate an event of a sudden arrival of more than 50 tons of marine litter on the northeastern Brazilian coast. This material mysteriously landed on several beaches, compromising water quality and impacting tourism, therefore raising serious concerns about its origin from local authorities. A total of 87,030 virtual particles were released and had their trajectories investigated, as well as their relationship with major physical forcings, including tides, winds and the North Brazil Under Current (NBUC). The virtual particles followed predominantly towards the north/northwest, mainly due to the presence of the NBUC and southeast trade winds. This pattern indicated that the flow of marine surface litter followed the continental shelf northwards, and the role of winds was key in providing the conditions for oceanic originated material to being deposit along the coastline. This study provided important insights about the regional circulation and main forcings that act in the transport and deposition of floating materials that reach the shallow shelf of the Brazilian northeast. Further investigation on the variability of these forcings along the seasonal cycle seems to be extremely important and should be undertaken soon.
You Ain't From Around These Parts Are Ya?"-David Chaltas (2021). ------------Simulated drift of MH370's flaperon, discovered at Réunion Island, from the unsuccessfully-searched 7 th-arc location, and the unsearched Penang-Longitude (PL) location, are both deemed feasible using CSIRO's model with different drift formulations. Locations are 700 km apart, and 1800 km added drift is required from the heavily-handicapped 7 th arc. CSIRO's 7 th-arc model used a "10 cm/s plus 1.2% windage" formula, but PL drift was a standard 1.2% windage (drift speed as a percent of wind speed). Did one of these break the rules in the "Drift to Réunion Island"? Over 508 days, CSIRO's flaperon "drifted" nearly 4400 km extra to reach Réunion Island on time, but little speed up was required from PL. Flaperon (real-Boeing plus replicas) field trials by CSIRO were under light-moderate winds in a shallow semi-enclosed embayment, and another with just wood/steel replica flaperons, offshore under high-winds. But embayment light-wind perpetual-motion 10 cm/s speedup for the real flaperon, above offshore model-calibrated 1.2% windage for general drift, was statistically well supported! Data exploration of embayment field trials suggested that drift was affected by Wind speed and observed Windage (drift speed/wind speed) itself! In the embayment trials, Wind (standard % formula) dominated above 9 m/s when Windage gremlins are asleep, with sleepless exceptions that identify mischief makers. Windage gremlins awaken, with the asymmetric flaperon flipping into a fast-slow "break-dance", between 9 to 5 m/s Wind to transition, below 5 m/s, tail-up, hooning mischievously left-of-wind along the fast-lane, low-wind, low-roughness, uplifted, "10 cm/s plus 1.2% windage" formula of good statistical fit! The referee in the form of a new innovative "windage" diagnostic modelling algorithm confirms "windage stratification" (where gremlins hide) also affected non-flaperon drifters but only from exposed surface drag and strong current shear in the top meter-expected from past research on lakes/embayments and density-stratified environments. Significant flaperon performance boost was from wind-sailing pressure forces wedged under the tail-up "sail canopy", uplift from trailing-edge wind separation, direct wind pressure uplift, and hydroplane lift-the reverse effects of a "duck-tail spoiler" used by race car "drifters" for extra downward drag pressure. In effect the flaperon flies with lift in air but sails with lift upside-down in water (on calm seas that is!). The new statistical diagnostic algorithm (over 99% deviance explained) suggests these performance-enhancing stable-condition tail-up postures, and wind shear effects in the top meter, are not perpetually viable in unstable deep turbulent conditions, such as the wild Southern Indian Ocean-just as no ballerina can perform the same on a wobbly boat, let alone a small surfboard-stage, heaving on the wild Southern Indian Ocean. Disappointingly, after accounting for justifiable object-related open-ocean drift enhancement, the 7 th-arc embayment-formula flaperon simulation was deemed to have sailed at least 3000 km more than justified by open-ocean drift rules. As before, MH370 still lies waiting patiently at the Penang Longitude location; a location supported by new direct satellite evidence of debris trail from the location and reconciled-evidence rejected by the sleepless-gremlin-infested 7 th-arc theory. No 7 th-arc analysis past the 5 th arc has withstood the test of time. All that is doable there is Done! The misleading 7 th-arc theory is Done! Let's not be blindly misled to that disappointing place again, which has been more than desperately searched in confused science and sea. Give it a rest and give us all a break! In memory of MH370, the new diagnostic algorithm is named "MH370 Open-Ocean Drift Algorithm", or MOODA. Rest in peace, it won't be much longer now.
How we view nature transforms the world around us. People rehearse stories about nature which make sense to them. If we ask the question 'why conserve nature?', and the answers are based on myths, then are these good myths to have? Scientific knowledge about the environment is fundamental to ideas about how nature works. It is essential to the conservation endeavour. However, any conservation motivation is nested within a society's meanings of nature and the way society values it. Given the therapeutic and psychological significance of nature for us and our culture, this book considers the meanings derived from the poetic and emotional attachment to a sense of place, which is arguably just as important as scientific evidence. The functional significance of species is important, but so too is the therapeutic value of nature, together with the historic and spiritual meanings entwined in a human feeling for landscape and wildlife.
Since the decades plastic importance and utilization have increased significantly. Due to the enormous properties of plastic, its increased global demand leads to production of huge quantity of plastic-based products annually. Due to the luxuriant usage of plastic-based products at an elevated rate, billion tons of plastic is getting generated in the environment. Plastic is persistent in nature and needs some centuries to get degraded in the environment. Most of the unmanaged plastic waste gets accumulated in the oceans. In the marine environment, plastic gets fragmented into various particle sizes due to various environmental forces. The resulted plastic particles are reported as macroplastic, mesoplastic, microplastic and nanoplastic. In the current chapter, an attempt was made to overview the generation and management of macroplastic at global level to reduce the plastic pollution in the environment.KeywordsPlastic wasteSingle-use plasticFishing gearMacroplasticMitigation measures
Surface drift at basin scale is related to winds that persist in strength and direction for weeks to months. Over these time scales, subtle balances are reached between two or three terms in the horizontal momentum balance, resulting in no local acceleration and a steady state of motion. In this context, slow movement on large scales is subject to Earth's rotation. One balance involves movement of the surface layer, a few 10s of metres deep, under a local wind stress (force per unit area). This leads to ‘Ekman drift’. The other balance involves development of horizontal pressure gradients and movement of the upper kilometre or so, in response to large-scale patterns of wind stress. This leads to basin-wide gyres, anticyclonic in the subtropics and cyclonic in subpolar latitudes. With the combined surface currents drift all manner of naturally occurring buoyant material, such as Sargassum and pumice, alongside our plastic waste.
Trajectory tracking and macroalgal growth models were coupled to support a novel macroalgae-harvesting concept known as the Nautical Off-shore Macroalgal Autonomous Device (NOMAD). The NOMAD consists of 5 km long carbon-fiber longlines that are seeded and free float southward along the U.S. West Coast for approximately 3 months before harvesting off the California coast, taking advantage of favorable environmental conditions. The trajectory and macroalgal growth models were applied to answer planning questions pertinent to the techno-economic analysis such as identifying the preferred release location, approximate pathway, timing until harvest, and estimated growth. Trajectories were determined with the General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment (GNOME) model, using 11 years of current and wind data, determining probabilities by running nearly 40,000 Monte Carlo simulations varying the start time and location. An accompanying macroalgal growth model was used to estimate the growth of macroalgae based on the trajectory tracks and environmental forcing products, including light, temperature and nutrients. Model results show that NOMAD lines transit south in the months of April to September due to seasonal currents, taking approximately 3 months to reach Southern California. During transit, NOMAD lines are dispersed but typically avoid beaching or passing through marine sanctuaries. NOMAD lines can yield up to 30 kg wet weight per meter of cultivation line.
The seafloor covers some 70% of the Earth's surface and has been recognized as a major sink for marine litter. Still, litter on the seafloor is the least investigated fraction of marine litter, which is not surprising as most of it lies in the deep sea, i.e. the least explored ecosystem. Although marine litter is considered a major threat for the oceans, monitoring frameworks are still being set up. This paper reviews current knowledge and methods, identifies existing needs, and points to future developments that are required to address the estimation of seafloor macrolitter. It provides background knowledge and conveys the views and thoughts of scientific experts on seafloor marine litter offering a review of monitoring and ocean modeling techniques. Knowledge gaps that need to be tackled, data needs for modeling, and data comparability and harmonization are also discussed. In addition, it shows how research on seafloor macrolitter can inform international protection and conservation frameworks to prioritize efforts and measures against marine litter and its deleterious impacts.
Many human perturbations have the potential of destabilizing the present functioning of the environment and marine plastic is one of them. Plastic debris was found everywhere on Earth, including polar waters. The Polarquest 2018 expedition around Svalbard (July and August 2018) used sustainable sail vessel Nanuq as a platform to sample microplastic in seawater and macro debris stranded on beaches.
Ocean current transports mass and energy around the world and it is the driving force of climate and it regulates local weather. Drifting buoy plays an important role in mapping world's ocean water circulations and its study. The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), MoES, Chennai has indigenized drifting buoy with the Indian Satellite (INSAT) telemetry and global positioning system receiver to acquire geo-positional updates to precisely calculate ocean's mixed layer surface current. The drifting buoy acquires hourly positional data (24 data/day) compared to ARGOS drifters which has limited pass in Indian tropical regions. The NIOT deployed drifting buoy in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea during monsoon seasons of 2012-2019 to study the Indian Ocean currents. This article reports about the mixed layer surface currents mapped by the indigenous drifting buoy in the Bay of Bengal.
Marine plastic has many negative impacts on coastal countries, including Vietnam. Vietnamese waters face problems of marine pollution owing to plastic waste. There are few studies on controlling marine plastic waste generated by marine-based activities. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a general view of marine plastics based on existing academic articles, and the impacts on marine animals and on human health. The paper includes a brief account of the quantity of marine plastic waste on coastal Vietnam and offers some recommendations for Vietnam to minimise and manage plastic waste generated by ships.
Why does material tend to congregate in long coherent clusters at the surface of the ocean when it is well known that the ocean is dispersive? Here we review some recent research that addresses this question. A standard diagnostic for discerning transport pathways in incompressible 2D flows is the finite time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE). The FTLE can be expressed as the average of two rarely evaluated Lagrangian objects: the dilation and stretch rates. The stretch rate accounts for the ability of fluid shear to change the shape of fluid blobs, and for incompressible fluids it is the FTLE. However, in the real ocean and especially at submesoscales, the horizontal divergence is not negligible. This is quantified by the dilation rate, which is identically zero in 2D incompressible flow. Our analysis demonstrates that the combination of fluid dilation and stretch enhances accumulation of buoyant material along thin clusters in an otherwise dispersing ocean.
Numerical modeling is one of the key tools with which we can gain insight into the distribution of marine litter, especially micro-plastics. Over the past decade, a series of numerical simulations have been constructed that specifically target floating marine litter, based on ocean models of various complexity. Some of these models include the effects of currents, waves, and wind as well as a series of processes that impact how particles interact with ocean currents, including fragmentation and degradation. Here, we give an overview of these models, including their spatial and temporal resolution, limitations, availability, and what we have learned from them. Then we focus on floating marine micro-plastics (<5 mm diameter) and we make recommendations for experimental research efforts that can improve the skill of the models by increasing our understanding of the processes that govern the dispersion of marine litter. In addition, we highlight the importance of knowing accurately the sources or entry points of marine plastic debris, including potential sources that have not been incorporated in previous studies (e.g., atmospheric contributions). Finally, we identify information gaps and priority work areas for research. We also highlight the need for appreciating and acknowledging the uncertainty that persists regarding the movement, transportation and accumulation of anthropogenic litter in the marine environment.
Korea severely suffers from plastic-induced ocean pollution, but only few studies predicted the trajectory of marine plastic debris and provided their collection method. This study used Ocean Surface CURrent Simulator (OSCURS) of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in order to predict the trajectories of marine plastic debris flowing into the East Sea and Yellow Sea for each season during 2004 to 2013. Results suggest that efficient collection hubs through the high betweenness centrality index. Most hubs were located in the seashores regardless of season, suggesting the seashore of Uljin for the East Sea and the seashore between Saemangeum and Shinan for the Yellow Sea as the most efficient hubs.
The DIVA-1 (2000), DIVA-2 (2005) and BIOZAIRE (2001, 2003) expeditions to abyssal zones of three ocean basins (Angola, Cape and Guinea) in the SE Atlantic have yielded more than 23,000 specimens or fragments of Polychaeta. Most of the thirteen collecting areas were sampled with an Agassiz trawl, an epibenthic sledge and repeated box corer and multicorer hauls at depths between 3945 and 5672m. Among the 47 families found, the best-represented were Acrocirridae, Ampharetidae, Chrysopetalidae, Cirratulidae, Hesionidae, Paraonidae, Spionidae and Sabellidae, whereas Alciopidae, Aphroditidae, Cossuridae, Pholoidae, Sternaspidae, Tomopteridae and Typhloscolecidae were rarely found. The present work generally deals with the taxa in Phyllodocida; the remaining groups are planned to be treated in future publications. The material was examined for morphological and partially for molecular characters (18S rDNA, 16S rDNA, COI, ITS1, ITS2); phylogenetic reconstructions were performed using maximum likelihood and parsimony.The following new taxa and names and other changes to nomenclature are proposed. Family Amphinomidae: Bathychloeia balloniformis sp. nov.; Chrysopetalidae: Dysponetus hesionides sp. nov., Dysponetus profundus sp. nov., Pseudodysponetus fragmentosus gen. et sp. nov.; Glyceridae: Glycera diva sp. nov., Glycera southeastatlantica sp. nov.; Hesionidae: Gyptis incisa sp. nov., Nereimyra auripalpa sp. nov., Sirsoe hessleri (Blake, 1991) comb. nov.; Lacydoniidae: Lacydonia elongataHartmann-Schröder & Rosenfeldt, 1992 syn. nov. of L. papillataUschakov, 1958; Nereididae: Profundilycastis Hartmann-Schröder, 1977 syn. nov. of RullierinereisPettibone, 1971, Ruillerinereis profundus (Hartman, 1965) comb. nov.; Phyllodocidae: Eulalia meteorensis sp. nov., Eumida angolensis sp. nov., Pseudomystides bathysiphonicola (Hartmann-Schröder, 1983) comb. nov., Pseudomystides brevicirra sp. nov., Pseudomystides rarica (Uschakov, 1958) comb. nov., Pterocirrus remus sp. nov.; Sphaerodoridae: Sphaerephesia regularis sp. nov., Sphaerodoropsis longianalpapilla sp. nov., Sphaerodoropsis macrotubercula sp. nov., Sphaerodoropsis protuberanca sp. nov. and Sphaerodoropsis rosehipiformis sp. nov.; Syllidae: Guillermogonita abyssicola gen. et sp. nov.Identification keys to the encountered families of Polychaeta as well as to the species within each family are presented, where applicable. For the new and many previously established species, detailed morphological descriptions are given and the respective geographic distribution is discussed.
In 1992, a cargo container of children's bath toys fell overboard in the middle North Pacific Ocean. Subsequently, 29,000 toys were tracked 4,000 kilometers to southeastern Alaska [ Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham , 1994]. The spill's upcoming fifteenth anniversary has prompted an examination of the reports of toys stranded on shorelines around the Subarctic Gyre, a planetary vortex the size of the United States.
Previous articles have reported the drift of sneakers and toys for a year or so only along the southern edge of the Pacific Subarctic Gyre [ Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham , 1992, 1994]. However, continuing reports of stranded toys have stimulated curiosity about how long it would take the currents that link the Gyre's perimeter between Asia and America to transfer flotsam around the Gyre, that is, its orbital period. These currents (Figure 1) are the North Pacific Drift Current, Alaska Current/ Alaska Coastal Current, Alaskan Stream, Bering Slope Current and East Kamchatka Current, Oyashio Current, and Kuroshio. In the Bering Sea, the North Aleutian Current recurves north from Attu Island eastward along the north side of the Aleutians to merge with the Bering Slope Current.
A global ocean circulation model is coupled to a particle-tracking model to simulate the transport of floating debris washed into the North Pacific Ocean by the Tohoku tsunami. A release scenario for the tsunami debris is based on coastal population and measured tsunami runup. Archived 2011/2012 hindcast current data is used to model the transport of debris since the tsunami, while data from 2008 to 2012 is used to investigate the distribution of debris on timescales up to 4years. The vast amount of debris pushed into ocean likely represents thousands of years worth of 'normal' litter flux from Japan's urbanized coastline. This is important since a significant fraction of the debris will be comprised of plastics, some of which will degrade into tiny particles and be consumed by marine organisms, thereby allowing adsorbed organic pollutants to enter our food supply in quantities much higher than present.
Walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma) is the single most abundant fish species in the Bering Sea and comprises the bulk of the commercial catch. Juvenile pollock
are an important forage fish for older pollock, other fish, marine mammals, and birds. We examine the interaction between
cannibalism, climate variability, and related patterns in physical transport. Our analysis of adult and juvenile pollock abundance
and distribution time series, ocean current modelling studies, and information on climate variability indicates that cannibalism
is a major determinant of interannual recruitment variability. In turn, the intensity of cannibalism appears to be dependent
on the degree of spatial separation of adults and juveniles. Strong year classes occur when juvenile pollock are transported
inshore and away from adults in spring – conditions typical of warm years. In cold years, transport is reduced and juveniles
remain on the outer shelf in proximity to adults. Co-occurring distribution patterns of adults and juveniles resulting from
these conditions lead to potentially increased cannibalism and subsequent weak year classes.
Computer simulations were used to investigate whether compass orientation is a sufficient guidance mechanism for sockeye salmon migrating to the Fraser River from their ocean foraging grounds in the north-east Pacific Ocean. Daily surface ocean currents, simulated by the ocean surface current simulations (OSCURS) model, were used to test the influence of currents on the return oceanic migration of Fraser River sockeye salmon. High seas tagging and coastal recover data of Fraser River sockeye salmon were used for the migration simulations. Surface currents were shown to increase the speed of the homeward-migrating sockeye salmon, as well as to deflect the fish in a north-eastward direction. In spite of ocean currents, all Fraser River sockeye salmon were able to reach their destination with a fixed direction and bioenergetically efficient swimming speed when migration was delayed until the last month at sea. Compass orientation alone was shown to be a sufficient direction-finding mechanism for Fraser River sockeye salmon.
Satellite-based Internet access, the preferred solution for remote locations on the ocean, either offers a low-bandwidth connection or is very expensive to deploy. A backbone structure that provides ocean-wide Internet coverage could provide an alternative to satellite uplinks. With a wide-area network forming a mesh of nodes using floating and moving objects as well as coastal facilities, the network would use next-generation long-range surface radio technology to provide medium- to high-bandwidth Internet access. To achieve high-bandwidth Internet access under these circumstances, the backbone must leverage state-of-the-art sensor network technology, autonomous routing mechanisms, and self-organizing abilities.
New genetic and archaeological approaches have substantially improved our understanding of the transition to agriculture, a major turning point in human history that began 10,000–5,000 years ago with the independent domestication of plants and animals in eight world regions. In the Americas, however, understanding the initial domestication of New World species has long been complicated by the early presence of an African enigma, the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Indigenous to Africa, it reached East Asia by 9,000–8,000 before present (B.P.) and had a broad New World distribution by 8,000 B.P. Here we integrate genetic and archaeological approaches to address a set of long-standing core questions regarding the introduction of the bottle gourd into the Americas. Did it reach the New World directly from Africa or through Asia? Was it transported by humans or ocean currents? Was it wild or domesticated upon arrival? Fruit rind thickness values and accelerator mass spectrometer radiocarbon dating of archaeological specimens indicate that the bottle gourd was present in the Americas as a domesticated plant by 10,000 B.P., placing it among the earliest domesticates in the New World. Ancient DNA sequence analysis of archaeological bottle gourd specimens and comparison with modern Asian and African landraces identify Asia as the source of its introduction. We suggest that the bottle gourd and the dog, two “utility” species, were domesticated long before any food crops or livestock species, and that both were brought to the Americas by Paleoindian populations as they colonized the New World.
• ancient DNA
• archaeology
• bottle gourd
• domestication
Unblocking temperatures of natural remanent magnetization were found to extend well above the dominant Curie points in samples of oceanic basalts from the axis of the East Pacific Rise. This phenomenon is attributed to the natural presence in the basalts of three related magnetic phases: an abundant fine-grained and preferentially oxidized titanomagnetite that carries most of the natural remanent magnetism, a few coarser and less oxidized grains of titanomagnetite that account for most of the high-field magnetic properties, and a small contribution to both the natural remanent magnetism and high-field magnetic properties from magnetite that may be due to the disproportionation of the oxidized titanomagnetite under sea-floor conditions. This model is consistent with evidence from the Central Anomaly magnetic high that the original magnetization acquired by oceanic basalts upon cooling is rapidly altered and accounts for the lack of sensitivity of bulk rock magnetic parameters to the degree of alteration of the remanence carrier in oceanic basalts.