MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cruise to assess micro-plastic pollution in Spain's northern waters and sediments

The study is carried out by research vessel Ramon Margalef, and covers part of the Atlantic and Cantabrian coastline sampling in 50 to 200 meters deep water

Researchers from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO) have started an oceanographic survey to assess micro-plastic contamination in both water and sediments off the coast of Galicia and Cantabria.

 For eight days, scientists will study the spatial and temporal distribution of micro-plastics and their associated pollutants and evaluate the effectiveness of sampling different networks for the study of these emerging pollutants.

The study is carried out aboard the scientific research vessel Ramon Margalef, which will cover part of the Atlantic and Cantabrian coastline sampling surface waters and sediments between 50 and 200 meters.

The survey is part of the European project BASEMAN (setting protocols and references for the analysis of micro-plastics in European waters), funded by the JPI-Oceans and coordinated by the German research centre Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).

The main objective of BASEMAN is to establish a standard methodology for the identification and quantification of contamination by micro-plastics in the oceans.

This project, which involves 26 institutions from 14 countries, is divided into five work chapters, one of which, the one on sampling, is led by Jesus Gago, a researcher at the IEO's Vigo Oceanographic Centre. (FIS)