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Three-dimensional distribution of plastic pellets in sandy beaches: shifting paradigms
Summary
Researchers dug up to 2 meters deep in sandy beaches near a river mouth in Spain and found plastic pellets at all depths, with surface layers holding less than 10% of the total subsurface abundance. The finding reveals that surface sampling dramatically underestimates beach plastic contamination and that pellets accumulate at depth through hydrodynamic burial processes.
Plastic pellets are worldwide contaminants that accumulate in the ocean, especially in sandy beaches, where their historic standing-stock quantification relies on surface sediment samples. We demonstrated these particles present a three-dimensional instead of a simple along-across shore distribution, being found as deep as 2.0 m, with surface layers accounting for <10% of the total abundance in the sediment column. This gradient seemed to be more related to oceanographic rather than anthropic processes, suggesting a general pattern whose applicability to microplastics and sedimentary environments as a whole should be investigated. This poses criticism in the exactness of standing-stock records and demands urgent discussion of sampling protocols.