AMRF/ ORV Alguita Projects
Featured Research
What's a Nurdle?
Plastic is now everywhere. When locating plastics anywhere in the environment, scientists have little difficulty fulfilling the age-old saying, "Seek, and ye shall find."
But where do plastics come from? Most plastics are made from the natural gas portion of our petroleum resources. The gasses, like ethylene, are purified and turned into plastic by the use of polymer catalysts, which link ethylene molecules together to make polyethylene. Polyethylene plastics make water bottles, clothing fabric, and Tupperware as well as thousands of other products. So how does the polymer get to the processor who makes the goods for the consumer. The answer is “nurdles.” Over 250 billion pounds of nurdles are shipped around the world to plastic processing factories every year. Nurdles are plastic resin pellets that represent the most economical way to ship large quantities of a solid material, that is, in a pelletized form.
The pellets come in rail tank cars, and at 20-25,000 per pound, there are about a billion of them in each tanker. So many have escaped over the last half century during the transfer from rail car to factory by vacuum hoses, washing during rainstorms from rail sidings to the sea, that nurdles now represent about 10% of the litter counted on beaches worldwide.
In surface trawls for plastic particles aboard the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza, nurdles have been found in every trawl. The plastic industry itself is the biggest single source of plastic particles in the environment.
Click here to make a comment:
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/oceandefenders/archive/2006/11/whats_a_nurdle.html
Watch the video, Taking Out the Trash
(towards the middle of the linked page below)
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/photo-audio-video/ocean-defenders-tv
Watch the video, What a Load of Rubbish
(towards the middle of the linked page below)
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/photo-audio-video/ocean-defenders-tv
Current Projects
Pelagic Plastics
Plastic in the ocean may be one of the most alarming of today's environmental stories. Plastic, like diamonds, are forever! Because plastics do NOT biodegrade, no naturally occurring organisms can break these polymers down. Instead, plastic goes through a process called photodegredation, where sunlight breaks down plastic into smaller and smaller pieces until there is only plastic dust. But always plastic remains a polymer. When plastic debris meets the sea it can remain for centuries causing untold havoc in ecosystems.
Eastern Garbage Patch 2005 Study
Captain Charles Moore has completed another voyage to the Eastern Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre. The crew collected surface samples using a manta trawl and drifting plastics using hand nets. These samples have been analyzed for plastic content and compared to the samples he collected on his previous trips to Hawaii and the eastern side of gyre. The crew also deployed four satellite tags for ghost nets. These floating tags have solar panels to power GPS transmitters, which can then keep track of the position of the nets and determine if they migrate to a convergence zone where they might be picked up and disposed of.
- Click to download a pdf of an Overview Map of the Collection Points
- ORV Alguita's 2005 Central Pacific Gyre Research Voyage
Crew Accounts from 2005 Pacific Gyre Voyage
Click on a crew member's name below to read their first-hand voyage report.
Escalera Nautica
The "Nautical ladder" project spans the coast of our neighbors to the south. President Fox of Mexico had proposed to build 24new marinas down the coast of Baja California with the hope of luring American boating businesses and tourists across the border by providing 23,000 new slips. President Fox’s administration is now coming to an end and he has not accomplished what he set out to do. There were many problems associated with this project. One of the problems was the marina at Santa Rosaliita. The marina was poorly designed and put in the middle of a littoral cell where sand moves along a beach. If you try to put a marina where sand is in motion, it fills it up. The jetties weren’t long enough to keep the sand out. The marina was filled with sand, which made it unusable. They had to stop the project and they are now just starting it up again. They will extend the jetties out further so that the sand won’t continue to fill in the marina so quickly. The problem we foresee is that marinas disrupt the delicate balance naturally created for the coastal marine ecosystem. Although this issue is a politically charged, international one AMRF is encouraged to participate in determining the effects these new marinas will have. After all, it was our founder, Charles Moore who said "The Ocean has no boundaries; the impact humans have on the ocean effects the entire ocean." The ORV Alguita has already made one research voyage to assess the impact but plans to return to compile more data once construction resumes. We intend to inform the inhabitants of Baja California of what the damage will be should they allow this "Ladder" to progress.
- Preliminary Coastal Analysis of Escalera Nautica
- Bill Macdonald's account of Escalera Nautica in Santa Rosaliita
- Notes on Nautical Ladder Project – June 2004 - Capt. Charles Moore
- Estudio Multidisciplinario de la Bahía Santa Rosaliita, B. C. en el Marco del Proyecto "Escalera Náutica" 2002 (pdf)
- Estudio Multidisciplinario De La Bahia De Santa Rosaliita, B. C. En El Marco Del Proyecto "Escalera Nautica" 2003 (pdf)
Ballona Creek study
Previous studies of neustonic debris have been limited to surface samples. Here we conducted two trawl surveys, one before and one shortly after a rain event, in which debris and zooplankton density were compared at three depths in Santa Monica Bay, California.
Related Articles
Year 2 of the Benchmark Study of
the San Ignacio and Ojo de Liebre Lagoons
This project is designed to compare the Oceanographic and Marine Biological conditions of the two major calving grounds of the Eastern Pacific Gray Whale, Escherictius robustus. The project was initially undertaken to address the potential changes to the environment in the pristine environment of San Ignacio Lagoon that would be caused by the installation of a salt plant similar to the one already operating in Ojo de Liebre Lagoon, Baja California, Mexico. Our baseline sampling on two separate visits included a full suite of oceanographic surveys: phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish populations, sea bird populations, benthic invertebrates, trace metals in the sediments and sea grasses, and physical/chemical characteristics of the water column. Scientist Gustavo Riano of Biopesca has compiled the scientific research of various participants in the study and produced an interactive CD comparing the two lagoons that concludes the results for the pilot project, which is awaiting publication.
Kelp Reforestation
Upon receipt of the “Equilon Pollution fine money” from the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation, Gordon Lehman of Coastal Marine Technologies continues research on restoration of the endangered Giant Kelp beds off the Southern California Coast and continues development of his educational kelp sporing equipment. Funding thus far has gone toward the improvement of dive and laboratory equipment to provide a safe, high-tech research environment for divers working on kelp transplanting.
S.E.A. Lab
Located in Redondo Beach, Ca. S.E.A. Lab is the laboratory used to analyze the samples of plastic from the 2000 Mid-Pacific Gyre voyage and the coastal ocean and beach sand samples used for comparison. It will also be the site for research on the Kelp Bass Project, once funding has been confirmed. Staffed by knowledgeable scientists, volunteers are trained to analyze the samples in the lab. Read more >
Portals to the Sea
Portals to the Sea, an Educational Pilot Project, is a collaborative project focusing on clean water that provides live digital video transmission with duplex voice communications between a diver underwater to school children at a land-based location. This project allows live laboratory study of marine life in natural environmental settings, education and live introduction of underwater marine life for school classrooms and public entertainment. Two-way communications between viewer and diver enable divers to be directed to a specific location or focus on specific objects. This approach can also provide spot or 24/7 monitoring of different marine life reducing cost, time and accessibility to the life being studied. Eventually, through satellite communications, this televised communication could be expanded to a worldwide event. Diver to shore communications can also be digitally recorded for documentation or for a later broadcast.
Related Articles
Plastic Debris, Rivers to Sea
Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) has been granted $482,183 by the California State Water Resources Control Board to conduct a pilot project, researching industrial sites and non-point sources responsible for adding plastic debris to the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers’ watersheds. The project began in November 2003 and will conclude in March 2006.
Related Articles
Projects Pending Funding
Whale Lagoon Studies
This project is designed to compare the Oceanographic and Marine Biological conditions of the two major calving grounds of the Eastern Pacific Gray Whale Escherictius robustus. The project was initially undertaken to address the potential changes to the environment in the pristine environment of San Ignacio Lagoon that would be caused by the installation of a salt plant similar to the one already operating in Ojo de Liebre Lagoon, Baja California, Mexico. Our baseline sampling on two separate visits included a full suite of oceanographic surveys: phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish populations, sea bird populations, benthic invertebrates, trace metals in the sediments and sea grasses, and physical/chemical characteristics of the water column.
The Kelp Bass Project
This will be the first study of its kind to analyze the hormonal effects that plastic marine debris is having on a major food-source fish, the Kelp Bass. With scientists at the S.E.A. Lab and Dr. Michael Baker at UCSD serum samples will be extracted from fish and the serum will be used to determine the effects of not only ingestion of a non-biodegradable substance but whether or not the plastic consumed is having a direct hormonal effect on the reproductive capabilities of the organism. Slated as a three and a half year study, this project proves to put AMRF on the map as a serious and dedicated scientific organization capable of producing relevant information to the communities we serve to protect and restore.
Other Articles
North Pacific Gyre Voyage 2000
North Pacific Gyre
400N 1450W
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
Plastic Particles were collected in each and every trawl during ORV Alguita's 6000 mile transect across the North Pacific Central Gyre. The surface layer contained alarming amounts of plastic products, tons of drifting nets, plastic bags, packing straps, and common household items like soap and deodorant bottles. A soup of plastic fragments was seen in the water column every time we dove to visually confirm our findings at the end of a trawl. A suspected container spill of plastic bags covered more than 10 miles of the center of the gyre. This was a sad confirmation of last year's survey results which found six pounds of plastic for every pound of plankton in our trawls. These processed petroleum products may remain in the ocean for hundreds of years, and will continue to accumulate without intervention and action.
- Details of ORV Alguita's 6000 mile transect across the North Pacific Central Grye.
- Background: Tar vs. Plastic
- A Constant Contaminant
- Sampling Methods
- Crewmembers Viewpoints