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Microplastics Found In Sediment Layers Untouched By Modern Humans (futurism.com) 45

Microplastics have been found in sediment layers that date back as early as the first half of the 1700s, "showing microplastics' pernicious ability to infiltrate even environments untouched by modern humans," reports Futurism. From the report: A team of European researchers made this alarming discovery after studying the sediment layers at three lakes in Latvia, as detailed in a study published in the journal Science Advances. The scientists were studying lake sediment to test if the presence of microplastics in geological layers would be a reliable indicator for the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch, defined in the study as starting in 1950 and meant to delineate when humans started having a large impact on our environment.

Scientists have long used layers of ash or ice to study past events on Earth, leading to the question of whether microplastics can serve as a reliable chronological marker for the Anthropocene. Clearly not, according to this new research, which found microplastics in every layer of sediment they dredged up, including one from 1733. "We conclude that interpretation of microplastics distribution in the studied sediment profiles is ambiguous and does not strictly indicate the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch," the scientists wrote.

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Microplastics Found In Sediment Layers Untouched By Modern Humans

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  • Not us (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @09:04PM (#64264458)

    I'm not saying it's aliens. But it was aliens.

    • It's time travelers - they used substandard equipment that left microplastics behind.
    • by hawk ( 1151 )

      not aliens.

      This was at the technological peak of the Bigfoot civilization--and further evidence that it was wiped out by vapor from plastic production!

  • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @09:07PM (#64264464)
    The more likely explanation is that procedure or equipment they are using for testing is faulty.
    • Yes and no. If any sampling technique ends up contaminating the sample, then the main conclusion: microplastics aren't a reliable marker of geological epochs, still holds.

      • Actually, means their method is not good.
        • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

          Right, but neither was a caveman's method of determining temperature. Since their method didn't work, and until someone comes up with a method that would work (assuming there is one), microplastics aren't a reliable marker of geological epochs.

          • Right, but it is not for the sensationalist "micro plastics get into everything" claim. It's because the method and procedure were faulty. They are drawing a specious conclusion to further their political agenda against the oil industry.

            • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              It's because the method and procedure were faulty.

              Then prove that with a new method and procedure that is not faulty.

              They are drawing a specious conclusion to further their political agenda against the oil industry.

              The oil industry has been using specious conclusions since they first started. Anyone and everyone who works in the oil industry is a human who is not worth anything and can be discarded - there is no innocent among them.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      Or their definition of “microplastics” is faulty.

      Exactly what kind of detector finds “microplastics”? Do you have to burn the sample and get a chemical spectrograph? X-ray it? Chemically analyze it for some sort of specific molecule ?

      This smells like someone is playing fast and loose with definitions, and because of that, the results don’t make sense.

      • What is this post labeled "Troll". He is asking the first question that needs to be asked in situation like that. How exactly people identify micro plastics? If the method makes sense than the next question should be about contamination. The micro plastics stories become more and more bizarre as it seems there isn't a place in the world that they cannot be found.
        • Well, I'm sure I've got "foe-fans" that reflexively burn mod points on me :)

          I guess maybe micro plastics are like micro pizza:

          https://darkhorsestore.org/col... [darkhorsestore.org]

        • Because he's questioning the processes of actual scientists when he has no asserted actual expertise. Those basic questions would be laughed out of the room before the findings got published. They've been published.

          "Exactly what kind of detector finds “microplastics”? " - perhaps read the article, or hey, google some things. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

          "Methods include visual analysis, laser diffraction particle, dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-tra
    • Almost as likely is the study was funded by PlastiCo. "Humans have always breathed in microplastics" sounds like it came from the same guys who gave us "Climate change is great."

      To be clear, I have no idea if the dudes in this study are compromised or not. But since your post dealt in assumptions and broad generalizations, I thought I'd add mine.

      The assault on science comes from within as well as without.

      • Almost as likely is the study was funded by PlastiCo.

        I don't think so. The research paper and article seem to tilt more toward Chicken Littleism than complacency.

    • by CaptQuark ( 2706165 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @11:43PM (#64264718)

      Or microplastics are so small they permeate almost everywhere like a dye in water or smoke in air. Saying they found microplastics in lower levels of sediment in a lake just means they are highly mobile and aren't limited to a single layer like larger particles.

      If microplastics are being carried globally in the high atmosphere, there aren't many places on earth where they won't show up eventually.

      • Or microplastics are so small they permeate almost everywhere like a dye in water or smoke in air. Saying they found microplastics in lower levels of sediment in a lake just means they are highly mobile and aren't limited to a single layer like larger particles.

        If microplastics are being carried globally in the high atmosphere, there aren't many places on earth where they won't show up eventually.

        That seems reasonable. It's too bad, in a way--I was looking forward to a Plasticine Epoch.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Daina.0 ( 7328506 )

        Other possibilities:
        1. Samples were contaminated.
        2. Microplastics are not really plastics
        3. Microplastics have always existed and occur naturally
        4. Method of detection of microplastics is flawed
        5. Microplastics didn't really appear in the samples, but the researchers have an agenda
        6. Story was misreported
        7. Microplastics come from something other than post-1950s life on earth
        8. Researchers are funded by a group that wants microplastics to show up everywhere, even on Mars and the Moon.
        9. Story was m

      • I think the issue was showing that they were not just being deposited everywhere, which obviously they are.

        It's that they are then moving down into previously deposited layers making it look like plastics existed in deposits made hundreds of years before plastics were invented. That opens up the possibility they're contaminating those supposedly 'pristine' layers.

        A sedimentary core is, just based on layman physics, a linear timeline of events. If parts of the upper layers are moving into lower ones
    • We're not talking about layers of stone or ice here, but muddy sediment at the bottom of a lake. I'm sure there are many other things that have encroached down into that sediment as well, especially various chemicals, radioactive isotopes, etc. So they simply cannot use that particular type of layering as an indicator for this particular kind of pollution.

    • The finding is interesting and worrying to me, if confirmed.

      I looked at the paper and they do write about QC procedures to minimize the risk of contamination- but I had the same thought as you. We will need to see 1) more studies confirming this result; 2) More investigation of another big issue mentioned in this discussion: How reliable is the "microplastics" detection procedure used? These will be essential before we can feel confident that "Downward migrating microplastics" exist.

      Unfortunately the
    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      This is a fairly important point because while they may have been attempting to use sedimentary layers to assess the chronology of plastics; if correct; their findings suggest there is mobility between sedimentary layers and cast doubt on sedimentary layer analysis, particularly for chronology, in general. It is highly unlikely such mobility would be limited to microplastics.

      This is a very delicate thing to cast doubt on. We have no ability to travel back in time and perform direct experiments over a statis

    • Or, the tests are picking up naturally occurring substances and incorrectly labeling them as "microplastics."

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @09:14PM (#64264476)

    What species were they?

    • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @09:37PM (#64264538)
      Not in the way that matters here. If you looked at total annual consumption of energy and other resources by human beings globally, the 1700s would be much closer to prehistory than to now. For one thing the population was 1/14 of now, and the fraction of that 0.5 B that was industrialized was minuscule.
    • Who brought up speciation?

      2/3 of the people alive today would have died off without plastics.

      If you would have died as a child from infection you passed on genes unfit for the pre-plastics niche.

  • If this sediment isn't touched by modern humans then what is your definition of "touched," the "show us on the doll" kind? We don't personally molest most other environments were microplastics end up.

    P.S. This is assuming they can be sure the samples weren't contaminated during or after collection.
  • Transport by earthworms?

  • by Qwertie ( 797303 ) on Friday February 23, 2024 @10:33PM (#64264604) Homepage

    If you were expecting sediments (an accumulation of loose particles at the bottom of a body of water) to be impermeable or pinpoint the precise decade or century when certain events occurred, I applaud your optimism, I guess.

    Words that the paper [science.org] uses to describe their findings do not include unusual, remarkable, unexpected, surprising/surprise, unanticipated, unforeseen, astonishing or even startling.

    However, they note that "more elongated particles and fibers have reduced mobility" so yeah, maybe date the anthropocene using big immobile elongated particles rather than the microest of the microparticles.

  • Maybe it wasn't us that ruined the oceans? ;-) ...But we know it was us that scorched the sky.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 )

      You jest, but there could be some truth here. Just as crude oil is deposited through naturally occurring processes on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, it doesn't seem impossible that some of that petroleum might have been transformed into (micro)plastics through natural processes.

      Recent studies have focused on smaller and smaller microplastics, to the point that it requires special microscopic processes to even detect them. At that scale, it seems unreasonable to assume that we know all the ways that microp

  • by Vegan Cyclist ( 1650427 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @12:26AM (#64264780) Homepage

    Out of the Pleistocene, and into the Plasticene.

  • by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @01:12AM (#64264812) Homepage

    What if micro-plastics are somehow formed naturally. That's why they're found everywhere.

  • Plastic was invented in 1907.

    That about it? Good.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I assume you're talking about Bakelite which was actually created some time in the 1800's

  • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @07:43AM (#64265172) Journal
    ... it calls into question what we think we know about the older layers. What else might travel back and forth between the various layers?
  • Or... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Saturday February 24, 2024 @10:41AM (#64265422)

    Or, maybe what is being detected as "microplastics" has an origin other than man-made plastics.

  • Or it could just be that the testing methodology is wrong. To quote James Burke, the historian/TV presenter, in a speech given to the Linus Pauling Memorial Lecture Series in May 5, 2020

    "... if you think the universe is made is made of omelets, you design instruments to find traces of intergalactic egg. And if you don't find any, no problem: Instrument failure."

    So now they are trying to find ways to have these "microplastics" somewhere they couldn't be because plastics weren't invented then. It couldn't be that their whole theory and testing methodology is wrong, so it must be correct to fit their theory. Congratulations, you found the "intergalactic egg".

  • Things that we probably think we understand but don't. This type of result should at least get us to question some of the hysteria around microplastics being "found" absolutely everywhere.

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