When you buy through links on our site , we may earn an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .
The hunt for any physical grounds of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues , more than two weeks after the plane ’s disappearance .
Despite periodic reports that some junk has been spotted , nothing has yet turned up that satisfies officials who are comb out the Indian Ocean for anything that could be a clue to the Boeing 777 - 200 ’s whereabouts .
A collection of plastic garbage found in the Pacific Ocean.
In addition to foetid weather , administrative bungling and the vastness of the search area , the search for MH 370 has been combine by one other factor : the unbelievable amount of garbage already floating in the search country — and in sea worldwide . [ Malaysia Flight 370 : Facts & Timeline ]
refuse patches worldwide
" Any lookup and saving attempt will be hampered by untold quantity of detritus , " Charles Moore , a sailor and researcher at the Algalita Marine Research Institute in Long Beach , Calif. , toldThe New York Times .
Moore is credited with being one of the first hoi polloi to go the warning machine on the macrocosm of the sea ' " refuse patches , " Brobdingnagian areas of float garbage — most of it plastic — that he first attend in 1997 while cross the Pacific Ocean .
" As I gazed from the deck at the surface of what ought to have been a pristine ocean , I was face , as far as the eye could see , with the sight of plastic , " Moore wrote in a 2003 essay forNatural History magazine .
" It seemed incredible , but I never found a light position , " Moore wrote . " In the week it make to cross … shaping debris was float everywhere : bottles , bottle cap , negligee , fragments . "
Recent research has launch that about 1,000 differentmicrobes fly high on food waste patches . Many of the bacteria belong to to the genusVibrio(the same genus as the cholera bacterium ) , which is sleep with to cause disease in humans and fauna . Other microbial penis of the " plastisphere " seem to hasten the breakdown of the charge card .
Plastic ’s effect on ocean living
quester looking for the debris sphere of MH370 are now searching an area known as the Indian Ocean Gyre , a region where there is piffling movement of the sea ’s electric current , which leads to the accretion of float garbage .
The isolated field is far from major shipping lanes and commercial-grade escape route , has few fishing boats and virtually no islands .
The Indian Ocean Gyre is one of several major gyre ( large , slowly rotating ocean current ) that are know to contain garbage patches . Others let in the North Pacific Gyre ( sometimes called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch ) , the South Pacific Gyre , the North Atlantic Gyre and the South Atlantic Gyre .
Worldwide , there are also tons of other regions where , because of prevailing jazz and ocean currents , garbage tends to accumulate . Because most of it is plastic , it resist decay and simply breaks down into lowly composition , which can harm sea spirit when ingested .
