VORTEX : In the Horizon 2020 project VORTEX, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sear Research investigates the degradation of (micro)plastics in marine environments, from estuaries and coastal areas to offshore seas and the deep ocean. NIOZ (the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research) biogeochemist...

TOPIOS : In the EU-funded TOPIOS project, which started in April 2017, scientists are trying to solve the so-called ‘missing plastic problem’. “This means that as much as 99 % of ocean plastic is missing: we don’t know exactly where it is or what damage it is doing. TOPIOS aims to fill in the gaps in...

CACH : Ice-core records show that glacials had lower atmospheric pCO2 and cooler temperatures than today and that the last deglaciation was punctuated by large, abrupt millennial-scale climate events. Explaining the mechanism controlling these oscillations remains an outstanding puzzle. The ocean is...

Interview with Linda Amaral-Zettler, senior scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ).   Every minute, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic waste enters the oceans. Plastic pollution is so ubiquitous that scientists have coined a new term for the marine environment:...

Every minute, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic waste enters the oceans. Plastics pollution is so ubiquitous that scientists have coined a new term for the marine environment: the plastisphere.