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Offshore surface waters of Antarctica are free of microplastics, as revealed by a circum-Antarctic study
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A sailing expedition circumnavigating Antarctica below 62 degrees South found fibrous particles that resembled plastic in nets but were confirmed by infrared spectroscopy to be biological silica from diatoms, not plastic. This finding highlights the risk of misidentification in remote ocean sampling and the importance of chemical confirmation of microplastic identity.
In 2018, during a circumnavigation of Antarctica below 62° S by the sailing boat Katharsis II, the presence of plastics was investigated with surface sampling nets at ten evenly spaced locations (every 36° of longitude). Although fibres that appeared to be plastic (particles up to 2 cm) were found in numbers ranging from 1 particle (0.002 particles per m) to 171 particles (1.366 particles per m) per station, a Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis indicated that these particles were not composed of plastic. The fibres which superficially reminded plastic were composed of silica and are of biological origin most likely generated by phytoplankton (diatoms). Therefore, the offshore Antarctic locations were proven to be free of floating microplastics.
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