scientists have found in the deep sea, a 20 – year-old cream cheese pack, and a similarly old garbage bag, and both were, in spite of the decades in the water, still like new. It had shown that "neither the bag nor the quark pack signs of fragmentation or even reduction in their ingredients," says the biochemist Stefan Krause, from the Geomar Helmholtz centre for ocean research in Kiel. The Fund, using a Team of Krause in the journal "Scientific Reports", reports, offer the first solid clue about the fate of plastic on the deep-sea floor.

About 20 years old and almost like new: Cola can from the deep sea

so Far, there is the removal of plastic waste on the ocean floor in more than 4000 meters deep, and limited long-term data, because the data found plastics can rarely be specifically dated. In the case of the Quark tub and the garbage bag came from the researchers the chance to help, the Rest was detective work: In the trash bag, a can of Coca-Cola put a special edition to the Davis Cup in 1988.

And the quark pack from a German manufacturer showed a five-digit zip code, which is only available since 1990. In addition, the manufacturer was bought up in 1999, which is the brand name disappeared.

garbage seems to have been left by German researchers

The garbage had probably left by German researchers between 1989 and 1996, when you are in the area around 800 kilometres off the coast of Peru to the impacts of a potential mining of manganese nodules researched. In the case of a re-visit to the area in 2015, the scientists found the plastic waste. A deep-sea robot fished the parts in the Eastern Pacific and finally to the sea.

displacement of the species: On the plastic other microbes settled in

In the analysis of art materials on the science that on the packaging of a different microbial community, based as on the sea floor in the area. "The microbes are all in the deep-sea floor. But, apparently, greater accumulations of plastic could provide locally for a shift in the ratio of the dominant species,“ says Krause.

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This could create plastic garbage on the sea floor artificial habitats and the functioning of the Ecosystem at risk. (dpa/maw)

*The contribution of ""As new": the North German researchers are shocked by the deep sea Fund" is published by Mopo. Contact with the executives here.

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Date Of Update: 14 June 2020, 16:27