Volcano island spewing forth rocks with platic embedded in them

[thewayne]

The Brazilian island, Trindade, has produced a new kind of rock - a ""plastiglomerates" because they are made of a mixture of sedimentary granules and other debris held together by plastic. Through studying the plastic, they've identified that a lot of it comes from fishing nets that wash up on beaches.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/brazilian-researchers-find-terrifying-plastic-rocks-remote-island-2023-03-15/

Comments

[disneydream06]

Freaky, Sad, and Frustrating. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[frith]

Fishing nets, baked in the sun, not melted from volcanic action (which is what "spewed" sounded like). Carbon sequestration. Perhaps we should be happy that at least some fossil fuel is getting reburied.

Some person asked of a national science show, 'could we dispose of plastic by dumping it all into an active volcano'. They didn't think too hard about it. After all, we already do that, it's called incineration and the burning plastic waste is used to generate energy. It's not exactly a good idea.

[thewayne]

No, dumping them into a volcano isn't that great an idea. ;-)  Not unlike loading spent nuclear waste into a rocket and shooting it into the sun: while the sun won't really notice, rockets aren't 100% reliable!

[rain_gryphon]

Like Frith said, the island is volcanic, but volcanism has nothing to do with what's happening here. Also, why is this terrifying? I'd much rather see loose plastic agglomerated into 'rocks' than floating around at large in the ocean where it can harm animals. They're strangely attractive rocks as well, plus I'd imagine those little pores and bubbles provide various opportunities of some sort for small creatures.

"This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology," said Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana.

He apparently got his diploma from the back of a cereal box. Pollution has 'reached geology' for the past several thousand years or so.

[silveradept]

Nature will use what's available to do what it does best, but I suspect most of us aren't all that fond of the idea of plastics being used as a binding agent to hold rocks together.