As you read this, a group of doctoral students from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is on a three-week expedition to the North Pacific Gyre to study the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a Texas-sized accumulation of trash (mostly plastic) that has been sucked into the gyre from North America and Asia over the decades.
The expedition, which the Union-Tribune wrote about last week, is the first of its kind. Here is a Scripps video that explains the phenomenon and the expedition:
Scripps will be posting periodic updates on its website. We’ll pass along those updates to you.