A disturbing discovery is made on a remote island: plastic rocks
Miscellaneous / / April 02, 2023
The echo of the Anthropocene looks like this.
Few places on Earth are as isolated as the volcanic island of Trindade in the Atlantic Ocean, three to four days from the coast of Brazil. Therefore, the geologist Fernanda Avelar Santos was amazed, discovering it bears a disturbing sign of human impact: rocks formed from excess plastic pollution in the ocean.
Santos first found plastic rocks in 2019 when she went to the island to spend research for his doctoral dissertation on a completely different topic - landslides, erosion and other geological risks.
She worked near a protected nature reserve known as Turtle Beach, the world's largest breeding ground for the endangered green turtle. There she came across a large layer of unusual blue-green rocks. Intrigued, she took some samples to her lab.
After careful analysis, the samples were identified as a new kind of geological formation, combining materials and processes that have formed rocks over billions of years, with a new ingredient: plastic rubbish.
We concluded that humans are now acting as a geological agent, influencing processes that were previously completely natural, such as the formation of rocks.
This is consistent with the concept of the Anthropocene, which scientists talk a lot about today: the geological era of human influence on the natural processes on the planet. Anthropocene.
Fernanda Avelar Santos
geologist, professor at the Federal University of Parana (Brazil)
This discovery alarmed and upset the scientist. She describes Trindade as "like a paradise": a beautiful tropical island whose remoteness has made it refuge for a variety of species - seabirds, fish found only there, almost extinct crabs, green turtles.
Continuing her research, she found that similar stone plastic formations had previously been reported in places like Hawaii, the UK, Italy and Japan - as early as 2014. But the island of Trindade is the most remote place on the planet where they have been found so far, Santos noted.
The geologist and her team have classified a new kind of "rock" found throughout the world into several types: "plastiglomerates," similar to sedimentary rocks, "pyroplasts" similar to clastic rocks, and a previously unidentified type of "plastistones" similar to igneous rocks breeds.
The main ingredient in the rocks found on Trindade were the remains of fishing nets. But ocean currents have also carried a lot of bottles, household waste and other plastic debris from around the world to the island.
The geologist now fears that as the rocks break down, microplastics will enter the environment and further pollute the island's food chain.
Marine pollution is causing a paradigm shift in understanding of rocks and sediments. Human intervention is now so prevalent that one has to question what is truly natural.
Fernanda Avelar Santos
geologist, professor at the Federal University of Parana (Brazil)
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