"Plastiglomerates" - new rock type made of plastic emerging in Hawaii

Rocks Made of Plastic Found on Hawaiian Beach | Science/AAAS | News
(news.sciencemag.org)



A new type of rock is being recognized and has been washing up on beaches in Hawaii, and scientists are predicting these to be found on coastlines around the world.

Plastic may be with us a lot longer than we thought. In addition to clogging up landfills and becoming trapped in Arctic ice, some of it is turning into stone. Scientists say a new type of rock cobbled together from plastic, volcanic rock, beach sand, seashells, and corals has begun forming on the shores of Hawaii.

“The article is intriguing and fascinating,” says geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack of the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the work. “If these things can be preserved, then they might be a nice marker around the world of when humans came to dominate the globe and leave behind their refuse in mass quantities.”

The stones are dubbed Plastiglomerates, and are formed from melting plastic merging with other material. They join the ranks of other types of human made 'rocks' such as gravel, crumbled concrete and asphalt, flue gas desulfurization material, and so on.

In fact humans are creating so much detritus that geologists have coined a new era in geologic history, the Anthropocene. What s fascinating modern era we live in... (I kid).

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