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Microplastics in Arctic Sea Ice: A Petromodern Archive Fever
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This cultural studies essay examines microplastics found in Arctic sea ice as a form of archive — recording human pollution and reducing the ecological agency of the ice itself. The paper applies philosophical frameworks to plastic contamination, arguing that microplastics in sea ice represent both a record of human impact and an erasure of natural ecological processes.
Following the spread of plastic waste into every corner of the globe, they view its “storage” in sea ice and animal bodies as an alternate archive, an obfuscation of ecological agency and the diminution of our own bodily autonomy. Approaching this through a Derridean “hauntological” frame, the authors posit that the presence and persistence of microplastics in sea ice are a manifestation of a global agential community of commodities archiving itself. This palimpsest of ecological histories (in terms of how traces of petrocultures write over one another) subsists as traces and samples of new industrial, cultural, and ecological realities. Considering the personal and affective impacts of this petromodern archival landscape, Mitchell and Waterhouse frame the ensuing melancholia as an Anthropocene equivalent of the Derridean archive fever: a sickness unto the death of ecosystems.
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5 Microplastics in Arctic Sea Ice: A Petromodern Archive Fever
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"This chapter explores how microplastics preserved in Arctic sea ice serve as a stratigraphic archive of the Petromodern era, embedding a synthetic chemical record into the planet's polar geology. The Arctic's role as a microplastic sink is significant because it signals that contamination has reached the most remote regions on Earth, with potential long-term consequences for polar ecosystems and the global water cycle."
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Researchers investigated whether glaciomarine sediments from Greenland's melting ice sheet contain microplastics that could be released as the ice retreats. The study developed purification methods to extract microplastics from fine glacial sediment. The research suggests that ice melt in Greenland may be releasing microplastics previously trapped in glacial deposits back into the ocean.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.