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Massive garbage patch

About 15 years after first discovering the great Pacific scraps spot , Capt . Charles Moore render in 2014 and discovered that semi - lasting islands made of ropes , buoys and other detritus were forming in the region .

Trash island

Here , an up - close look at the " Shark Island " ( so named because of its visual aspect ) . buoy , lynchpin and rophy washed to ocean when the 2011 Japanese Tsunami inundated aquaculture gravy holder may have form the island , researchers hypothesize .

Trash adrift

Moore first break the trumpery while returning from a yacht backwash in 1997 . Here , a throttle armored combat vehicle bobs in the middle of the Pacific Ocean .

Larger extent

In a newfangled despatch , Moore ’s squad has ground plastic debris in places they did n’t expect to .

Trawling for trash

A scientist on another expedition trawls for trash in the sea .

Secret life

Past enquiry has found that a mystic world of microbes and microorganism know on the credit card detritus in the ocean . Here , scientist Greg Boyd ( from a separate expedition ) shows the ocean aliveness that has colonized foam floats .

Deeper Ocean

A 2014 newspaper find that the ocean plastic is mysteriously disappearing , perchance because it is being carry deeply into the ocean , like this scum travelling bag institute deep below an submerged canyon off the sea-coast of Monterey , California .

trash island formed in great pacific garbage patch

trash island

gas tank bobbing in the ocean

garbage patch plastic ocean debris

Giora Proskurowski deploys a net collect samples that help estimate how much plastic debris is in the ocean.

foam floats with bacteria and invetebrates

trash bag corla

Large swirls of green seen on the ocean�s surface from space

A satellite image showing a giant plume of discolored water beneath the surface

A satellite image of a thin wispy ring of clouds above the ocean

A satellite photo of a giant iceberg next to an island with hundreds of smaller icebergs surrounding the pair

a close-up of a material with microplastics embedded in it

Stunning aerial view of the Muri beach and lagoon, with its three island, in Rarotonga in the Cook island archipelago in the Pacific

a landscape photo of an outcrop of Greenland�s Isua supracrustal belt, shows valley with a pool of water in the center and a coastline and ocean beyond

Petermann is one of Greenland�s largest glaciers, lodged in a fjord that, from the height of its mountain walls down to the lowest point of the seafloor, is deeper than the Grand Canyon.

A researcher stands inside the crystal-filled cave known as the Pulpí Geode — the largest geode on Earth.

A polar bear in the Arctic.

A golden sun sets over the East China Sea, near Okinawa, Japan.

Vescovo (left) recently completed the Five Deeps Expedition with his latest dive into the deepest part of the Arctic Ocean.

An image comparing the relative sizes of our solar system�s known dwarf planets, including the newly discovered 2017 OF201

an illustration showing a large disk of material around a star

a person holds a GLP-1 injector

A man with light skin and dark hair and beard leans back in a wooden boat, rowing with oars into the sea

an MRI scan of a brain

A photograph of two of Colossal�s genetically engineered wolves as pups.

An illustration of a hand that transforms into a strand of DNA