Experts suspect that the high level of waste in the Mariana trench due to its proximity to the Chinese industrial areas.
For the first time by measuring the level of organic pollutants in deep depressions of the seabed (including the Marianas), the scientists found that the body of native animals in a large number of accumulated toxic chemicals.
This is with reference to the report made at the conference in Shanghai on 8 June.
Alan Jamieson Alan Jamieson and his colleagues first measured the concentration of organic pollutants in the body of shrimps living at a depth of seven to ten thousand meters, the Mariana trench in the West Pacific ocean to the Kermadec trench (off the coast of New Zealand). Previously, scientists conducted similar studies at depths of up to two thousand meters.
Crustaceans caught during two Oceanographic expeditions in 2014: they were collected automatic underwater vehicles. The inhabitants of both valleys found polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB, of these substances are made of plastic) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE, flame retardants). Both chemicals belong to the persistent organic pollutants slowly degradable carcinogens that have been banned in most countries since the 1970-ies.
In the Mariana trench, the concentration of PCB was even higher than in the deltas of the two polluted rivers of China (the pearl river and Liao). In the Kermadec trench threat level of the PBDE contents in the body of shrimps.
“The moral of the story is: if you throw in a sea of garbage, sooner or later it will sink. When pollutants get into the deep troughs, they have nowhere else to go, and they accumulate. That’s why there is the level of hazardous substances is higher than in river deltas, where they are constantly washed away,” said Jamison.
Scientists suspect that the high level of PCB in the Mariana trench due to its proximity to the Chinese industrial areas to, where possible plastic, as well as to the American military base on the island of GUAM.
