Abstract
Plastic and microplastic pollutions are known to be widespread across the planet in all types of environments. However, relatively little about microplastic quantities in the deeper areas of the oceans is known, due to the difficulty to reach these environments. In this work, we present an investigation of microplastic (<5 mm) distribution performed in the bottom sediments of the abyssal plain off the coast and the canyon of Toulon (France). Four samples of deep-sea sediment were collected at the depth of 2443 m during the sea operations carried out by the French oceanographic cruises for the KM3NeT project. The chemical and physical characterisation of the sediment was carried out, and items were extracted from sediments by density separation and analysed by optical microscope and µRaman spectroscopy. Results show microplastics in the deep-sea sediments with a concentration of about 80 particles L−1, confirming the hypothesis of microplastics spread to abyssal sediments in the Mediterranean Sea.
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The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank the KM3NeT Project for giving them the opportunity to carry out this study, the µRaman Laboratory of DISTAV for the analysis of the polymers and the Diffractometry Laboratory of DISTAV for the mineralogical analysis.
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Conceptualisation, L.C., M.C., A.D., P.L. and M.A.; methodology, L.C. and A.R.; investigation, V.B. and I.G.; data curation, P.C., S.C., D.D. and A.R.; writing—original draft preparation, L.C., M.C., A.D., P.L., P.C., V.B., D.D., A.R. and I.G.; project administration, M.C., P.L. and M.A.; and funding acquisition, M.C. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Supplementary file1 Online Resource 1: HROV Ariane picks up and stores the sample from the bottom; for short, the video playback speed is multiplied by 4 times. In the video, it is possible to see the robotic metallic arm of the HROV Ariane that opens the lid of the sample storage container that was previously coated with an aluminium foil to avoid plastic contamination of the sample, picks up the sediment samples from the sea bottom, stores them in the container and, finally, closes the lid of the container. The robotic arm takes 3 portions of surface sediment approximately 5 cm thick with the grab and collected them on the container. (MP4 126955 KB)
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Cutroneo, L., Capello, M., Domi, A. et al. Microplastics in the abyss: a first investigation into sediments at 2443-m depth (Toulon, France). Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 9375–9385 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17997-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17997-z