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21 results for “microplastics in the ocean”
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Environment & SustainabilityArticle
🔄 Tides of Plastic: Microplastic Pollution in the Oceans and Its Journey Back to Us
From section: Frequently Asked Questions+What are microplastics in the ocean? Microplastics are small plastic particles, typically smaller than about 0.2 inches (5 millimeters). They can form when larger plastic items break apart, or they can come from intentionally manufactured small particles, synthetic fibers, tire wear, coatings, and other sources.
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Environment & SustainabilityArticle
🕸️ Ghost Nets, Silent Drifters: How Lost Fishing Gear Haunts the Ocean
From section: 🌍 Ghost nets and the story of ocean plasticsLarge-scale surveys of floating debris have found that fishing gear can make up a substantial share of plastic mass in some parts of the ocean. In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, one study estimated that fishing nets alone account for about 46 percent of the plastic mass by weight.
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Planet EarthArticle
🌐 How SONAR Uses Sound to Map the Hidden Ocean Depths
From section: 🐋 Listening to life in the oceanThis biological perspective connects back to the earlier discussion of sound propagation. The same physical principles that guide SONAR pulses also shape how animal sounds travel through the ocean, which provides a natural path toward understanding how SONAR technology developed over time.
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Cosmic ExplorationArticle
🌍 When Earth First Took Shape: A Planet Born from Cosmic Dust
From section: 🌊 From fire to water: Cooling, oceans, and early atmosphere… Early Earth may have hosted a global or near-global ocean, although the timing, extent, and stability of those first oceans remain active areas of research.
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Planet EarthArticle
🌊 Niagara Falls, Where Thundering Waters Shape Time
From section: 🧊 From ice and stone: How Niagara Falls was born… As the climate warmed approximately 12,500 years ago, the retreating ice carved basins that filled to become the Great Lakes. Meltwater from these lakes sought pathways toward the ocean, and one of those pathways became the Niagara River. …
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Cosmic ExplorationArticle
🌙 Quiet Worlds, Vast Stories: Some Lesser-Known Moons of Our Solar System
From section: 🧊 Mimas: The cratered sentinel of SaturnFor many years, Mimas appeared to be a simple, heavily cratered ice‑rich body. However, a 2024 study of its orbital motion provided strong evidence that a global subsurface ocean lies beneath its icy shell, possibly between 5 and 15 million years old. …
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Planet EarthArticle
🏔️ Mount Kailash: A Summit Where Water, Story, and Sky Converge
From section: 💡 Did you know?🏔 The wider Himalayan and Tibetan Plateau region preserves evidence of the ancient Tethys Ocean and later continental collision, while the Kailash region records complex uplift, sedimentation, faulting, and erosion.
- The Perpetually Curious! › Canonical › Planet EarthArticle
🌊 Where the Waves Leave Their Footprints: Why Beaches Carry Sand
From section: 🌬️ The Coastal Conveyor BeltReaders who wish to understand how extreme ocean waves differ from the everyday wave patterns that shape beaches may find additional insight in the behavior of tsunamis, where ocean energy reaches the shore under exceptional circumstances.
- The Perpetually Curious! › CanonicalReflection
Quiet Cycles of Life
Ocean circulation carries this exchange into longer time scales. Cold waters can absorb more carbon dioxide, and when those waters sink, carbon can be transported into deeper layers for extended periods. …
- The Perpetually Curious! › CanonicalReflection
Starborn Memory Within
In solitude, you are never alone. The atoms composing your thoughts have been companions to countless others: in other bodies, in ocean waves, in mountain stone, in creatures long extinct. The carbon in your neurons might have been in the tooth of a dinosaur, the frond of a fern, the crystal lattice of a diamond. …