Plastic Bags in the Depths of the Sea

Victor Vescovo went down to his submersible, ready to explore the deepest place in the ocean — the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. As he went down, the ship then proceeded to detach the submersible. The submersible, now detached, went down the ocean floor. Smoke (possibly made out of sand, I think) came upon the submarine’s impact on the bottom — Victor has successfully landed on the ocean floor, and the crew on the ship cheered.

As Victor toured the ocean floor for four hours, he found arrowtooth eels, transparent-headed cusk eels, grenadier fish, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, some plastic bags.

The latest descent, which reached 10,927m (35,849ft) beneath the waves, is now the deepest by 11m - making Victor Vescovo the new record holder.
Humanity's impact on the planet was also evident with the discovery of plastic pollution. It's something that other expeditions using landers have seen before.
Millions of tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year, but little is known about where a lot of it ends up.
The scientists now plan to test the creatures they collected to see if they contain microplastics - a recent study found this was a widespread problem, even for animals living in the deep.

More details about this exploration on BBC.

(Image Credit: Reeve Jolliffe)

(Image Credit: Atlantic Productions for Discovery Channel)


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