Microplastics in Marine Environments: Occurrence, Distribution and Effects

Dear Colleagues,

Today, we recognise that plastic is ubiquitous in the marine realm occurring from the equator to the poles, from anthropogenic centres to remote areas and from beaches to the deep sea because of a global high rate of plastic waste mismanagement allowing millions of tons of plastic waste to enter the ocean every year. Despite the growing number of microplastics studies in recent years, a large knowledge gap concerning microplastics behaviour in the pelagic and deep ocean remains. For example, the estimated number of microplastics floating at the surface accounts only for 1% of the assumed input. At the same time, it is unclear how microplastics are vertically distributed in the water column, or how fast they sink in the water column. A ubiquitous vertical occurrence of microplastics in the water column is intuitive if the sinking of microplastics from the ocean surface is assumed to make deep sea sediments a sink for microplastics. In situ observations of its behaviour are almost entirely missing.

The Special Issue “Microplastics in Marine Environments: Occurrence, Distribution and Effects” of the Oceans journal seeks original contributions in the field of all geosciences disciplines concerned with microplastics studies from detection methods and/or sensor development over temporal and spatial distributions to modelling efforts. Articles on topics of interest to environmental scientists as well as policy makers and wider public addressing the keywords will be considered for publication.

Keywords: 

• Microplastics in biogeochemical provinces
• Regional distribution of microplastics
• Source and sinks of microplastics
• Microplastics degradation
• Microplastics alteration
• Detection methods
• Effects of biofilm formation
• Sinking velocity
• Microplastics as a sink/source of pollutants
• Microplastics as a vehicle for virus transport
• Modelling microplastics behaviour in marine realm
• Microplastics inventory
• In situ observations
• Laboratory experiments

Now, the Special Issue is opening for submission. Moreover, this will be a dynamic Special Issue, and articles will be published as soon as the reviewers and editors are ready to accept them, without waiting for the deadline for the entire Special Issue to arrive.

Prof. Dr. Joanna J. Waniek
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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