Plastic Rocks Found On Remote Volcanic Island Are A “Terrifying” Discovery

Photo: “Plastic rocks” found on Trindade Island in the state of Espirito Santo is seen at the laboratory of the Federal University of Parana, in Curitiba, state of Parana, Brazil March 7, 2023. Image credit: REUTERS/Rodolfo Buhrer

At first, scientists couldn’t identify the strange bluish-green rocks so they ran chemical tests on them and… oh.

“Plastic rocks” have been found on a remote volcanic island off of the Brazilian coast in what geologists have described as a “new and terrifying” development. They added that the discovery is yet another sign of how human activity is drastically changing the natural world and even Earth’s geology.

Dubbed “plastiglomerates,” the rocks are a mixture of sedimentary granules and other debris that have been fused together by plastic melted from volcanic activity.

As first reported by Reuters, geologists from the Federal University of Parana recently made the discovery on Trindade Island, a green turtle refuge with no permanent human settlement, found in the Atlantic 1,140 kilometers (708 miles) from Brazil’s southeastern state of Espirito Santo.

The scientists couldn’t initially identify the strange blue-ish green rocks, so they ran a number of chemical tests on the samples. This revealed that they are made of both rocky sediment and plastic most likely from fishing nets, a major contributor to plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. 

“This is new and terrifying at the same time because pollution has reached geology,” Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana, told the news agency.

“We identified (the pollution) mainly comes from fishing nets, which is very common debris on Trinidade Island’s beaches. The (nets) are dragged by the marine currents and accumulate on the beach. When the temperature rises, this […]

Full article: Plastic Rocks Found On Remote Volcanic Island Are A “Terrifying” Discovery