Microplastics Found In Sediment Layers Untouched By Modern Humans (futurism.com) 45
Microplastics have been found in sediment layers that date back as early as the first half of the 1700s, "showing microplastics' pernicious ability to infiltrate even environments untouched by modern humans," reports Futurism. From the report: A team of European researchers made this alarming discovery after studying the sediment layers at three lakes in Latvia, as detailed in a study published in the journal Science Advances. The scientists were studying lake sediment to test if the presence of microplastics in geological layers would be a reliable indicator for the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, defined in the study as starting in 1950 and meant to delineate when humans started having a large impact on our environment.
Scientists have long used layers of ash or ice to study past events on Earth, leading to the question of whether microplastics can serve as a reliable chronological marker for the Anthropocene. Clearly not, according to this new research, which found microplastics in every layer of sediment they dredged up, including one from 1733. "We conclude that interpretation of microplastics distribution in the studied sediment profiles is ambiguous and does not strictly indicate the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch," the scientists wrote.
Scientists have long used layers of ash or ice to study past events on Earth, leading to the question of whether microplastics can serve as a reliable chronological marker for the Anthropocene. Clearly not, according to this new research, which found microplastics in every layer of sediment they dredged up, including one from 1733. "We conclude that interpretation of microplastics distribution in the studied sediment profiles is ambiguous and does not strictly indicate the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch," the scientists wrote.
Not us (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not saying it's aliens. But it was aliens.
Re: (Score:2)
Bah! (Score:2)
not aliens.
This was at the technological peak of the Bigfoot civilization--and further evidence that it was wiped out by vapor from plastic production!
Faulty machine or contaminated samples (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Faulty machine or contaminated samples (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes and no. If any sampling technique ends up contaminating the sample, then the main conclusion: microplastics aren't a reliable marker of geological epochs, still holds.
Re: Faulty machine or contaminated samples (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Right, but neither was a caveman's method of determining temperature. Since their method didn't work, and until someone comes up with a method that would work (assuming there is one), microplastics aren't a reliable marker of geological epochs.
Re: Faulty machine or contaminated samples (Score:1)
Right, but it is not for the sensationalist "micro plastics get into everything" claim. It's because the method and procedure were faulty. They are drawing a specious conclusion to further their political agenda against the oil industry.
Re: (Score:2)
It's because the method and procedure were faulty.
Then prove that with a new method and procedure that is not faulty.
They are drawing a specious conclusion to further their political agenda against the oil industry.
The oil industry has been using specious conclusions since they first started. Anyone and everyone who works in the oil industry is a human who is not worth anything and can be discarded - there is no innocent among them.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Or their definition of “microplastics” is faulty.
Exactly what kind of detector finds “microplastics”? Do you have to burn the sample and get a chemical spectrograph? X-ray it? Chemically analyze it for some sort of specific molecule ?
This smells like someone is playing fast and loose with definitions, and because of that, the results don’t make sense.
Re: Faulty machine or contaminated samples (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Well, I'm sure I've got "foe-fans" that reflexively burn mod points on me :)
I guess maybe micro plastics are like micro pizza:
https://darkhorsestore.org/col... [darkhorsestore.org]
Re: (Score:2)
"Exactly what kind of detector finds “microplastics”? " - perhaps read the article, or hey, google some things. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"Methods include visual analysis, laser diffraction particle, dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-tra
Re: (Score:1)
Almost as likely is the study was funded by PlastiCo. "Humans have always breathed in microplastics" sounds like it came from the same guys who gave us "Climate change is great."
To be clear, I have no idea if the dudes in this study are compromised or not. But since your post dealt in assumptions and broad generalizations, I thought I'd add mine.
The assault on science comes from within as well as without.
Re: (Score:1)
Almost as likely is the study was funded by PlastiCo.
I don't think so. The research paper and article seem to tilt more toward Chicken Littleism than complacency.
Re:Faulty machine or contaminated samples (Score:5, Informative)
Or microplastics are so small they permeate almost everywhere like a dye in water or smoke in air. Saying they found microplastics in lower levels of sediment in a lake just means they are highly mobile and aren't limited to a single layer like larger particles.
If microplastics are being carried globally in the high atmosphere, there aren't many places on earth where they won't show up eventually.
Re: (Score:2)
Or microplastics are so small they permeate almost everywhere like a dye in water or smoke in air. Saying they found microplastics in lower levels of sediment in a lake just means they are highly mobile and aren't limited to a single layer like larger particles.
If microplastics are being carried globally in the high atmosphere, there aren't many places on earth where they won't show up eventually.
That seems reasonable. It's too bad, in a way--I was looking forward to a Plasticine Epoch.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Other possibilities:
1. Samples were contaminated.
2. Microplastics are not really plastics
3. Microplastics have always existed and occur naturally
4. Method of detection of microplastics is flawed
5. Microplastics didn't really appear in the samples, but the researchers have an agenda
6. Story was misreported
7. Microplastics come from something other than post-1950s life on earth
8. Researchers are funded by a group that wants microplastics to show up everywhere, even on Mars and the Moon.
9. Story was m
Re: (Score:2)
It's that they are then moving down into previously deposited layers making it look like plastics existed in deposits made hundreds of years before plastics were invented. That opens up the possibility they're contaminating those supposedly 'pristine' layers.
A sedimentary core is, just based on layman physics, a linear timeline of events. If parts of the upper layers are moving into lower ones
Re: (Score:2)
We're not talking about layers of stone or ice here, but muddy sediment at the bottom of a lake. I'm sure there are many other things that have encroached down into that sediment as well, especially various chemicals, radioactive isotopes, etc. So they simply cannot use that particular type of layering as an indicator for this particular kind of pollution.
Re: (Score:2)
I looked at the paper and they do write about QC procedures to minimize the risk of contamination- but I had the same thought as you. We will need to see 1) more studies confirming this result; 2) More investigation of another big issue mentioned in this discussion: How reliable is the "microplastics" detection procedure used? These will be essential before we can feel confident that "Downward migrating microplastics" exist.
Unfortunately the
Re: (Score:2)
This is a fairly important point because while they may have been attempting to use sedimentary layers to assess the chronology of plastics; if correct; their findings suggest there is mobility between sedimentary layers and cast doubt on sedimentary layer analysis, particularly for chronology, in general. It is highly unlikely such mobility would be limited to microplastics.
This is a very delicate thing to cast doubt on. We have no ability to travel back in time and perform direct experiments over a statis
Re: (Score:2)
Or, the tests are picking up naturally occurring substances and incorrectly labeling them as "microplastics."
1700s people weren't "modern humans"? (Score:4, Insightful)
What species were they?
Re:1700s people weren't "modern humans"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Who brought up speciation?
2/3 of the people alive today would have died off without plastics.
If you would have died as a child from infection you passed on genes unfit for the pre-plastics niche.
Then It's Touched (Score:2)
P.S. This is assuming they can be sure the samples weren't contaminated during or after collection.
Maybe (Score:2)
Transport by earthworms?
Look, I don't know what to tell you (Score:4, Informative)
If you were expecting sediments (an accumulation of loose particles at the bottom of a body of water) to be impermeable or pinpoint the precise decade or century when certain events occurred, I applaud your optimism, I guess.
Words that the paper [science.org] uses to describe their findings do not include unusual, remarkable, unexpected, surprising/surprise, unanticipated, unforeseen, astonishing or even startling.
However, they note that "more elongated particles and fibers have reduced mobility" so yeah, maybe date the anthropocene using big immobile elongated particles rather than the microest of the microparticles.
So microplastics are naturally-occuring? (Score:2)
Maybe it wasn't us that ruined the oceans? ;-) ...But we know it was us that scorched the sky.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You jest, but there could be some truth here. Just as crude oil is deposited through naturally occurring processes on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, it doesn't seem impossible that some of that petroleum might have been transformed into (micro)plastics through natural processes.
Recent studies have focused on smaller and smaller microplastics, to the point that it requires special microscopic processes to even detect them. At that scale, it seems unreasonable to assume that we know all the ways that microp
It's a new era.. (Score:5, Funny)
Out of the Pleistocene, and into the Plasticene.
Re: (Score:2)
4/10
What if it's natural? (Score:3)
What if micro-plastics are somehow formed naturally. That's why they're found everywhere.
Mismatch? (Score:2)
Plastic was invented in 1907.
That about it? Good.
Re: (Score:1)
I assume you're talking about Bakelite which was actually created some time in the 1800's
More interestingly ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: More interestingly ... (Score:1)
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, maybe what is being detected as "microplastics" has an origin other than man-made plastics.
Alternative (Score:2)
"... if you think the universe is made is made of omelets, you design instruments to find traces of intergalactic egg. And if you don't find any, no problem: Instrument failure."
So now they are trying to find ways to have these "microplastics" somewhere they couldn't be because plastics weren't invented then. It couldn't be that their whole theory and testing methodology is wrong, so it must be correct to fit their theory. Congratulations, you found the "intergalactic egg".
Micro plastics, the latest in a long line of.. (Score:1)