1. The first report of deep-sea litter in the South-Western Caribbean Sea.
- Author
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Botero CM, Zielinski S, Pereira CI, León JA, Dueñas LF, and Puentes V
- Subjects
- Caribbean Region, Mediterranean Sea, Plastics, Water Pollution analysis, Environmental Monitoring, Waste Products analysis
- Abstract
Marine litter is a world-wide problem, but the knowledge on this topic in remote areas such as the poles and the deep-sea is still limited. This paper seeks to provide the first accounts of deep-sea litter in the South-Western Caribbean Sea. The survey used 5066 still images from ROV video surveys around four hydrocarbon exploratory drilling zones. Forty-eight deep-sea litter items were found at depths between 427 and 2561 m, and analyzed by three different marine litter classifications. Plastic was the most frequent material (65%) and general litter the main category (69%). Almost half of the deep-sea litter items were found close to marine organism. This baseline is a first step to further research of human impact on the marine bottoms of the Caribbean. The paper highlights the importance of deep-sea litter as a descriptor of marine pollution, and the role of scientific cooperation between off-shore industry and the academy., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Anadarko Colombia Company is a subsidiary of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (since August 2019, Occidental Petroleum Corporation) that provided funding for the hydrocarbon exploratory projects, together with Ecopetrol. Other companies involved in the project were Dolphin Drilling that operated the Mobile Operating Drilling Unit, from where the ROV was launched; Subsea 7 (and its division I-TECH services) provided the ROV services. CSA Ocean Science Inc. provided the towed camera which were launched from SERPORT vessels., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2020
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