Marine pollution levels broke international guidelines

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-08-10 04:00

Australia; TAS

Pollution in Antarctic marine environments. Credit: Stark et al. & Australian Antarctic Division, CC-BY 4.0

Monitoring marine pollution at eastern Antarctica's Casey Station has revealed that contaminant levels exceeded international guidelines across 18 years between 1997 and 2015, the entire period analysed. The Australian and Canadian researchers behind the study say contaminants that exceeded international guidelines for sediment quality included metals, hydrocarbons, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which are highly carcinogenic compounds used in industrial and consumer products. They conclude that Antarctic research stations such as Casey may pose a long-term ecological risk to local sea life through marine pollution, although it's likely to mainly affect areas close to the stations. However, the extent and amount of pollution are likely to increase in the future, they add.

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Pollution in Antarctic marine environments

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Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Australian Antarctic Division, University of Tasmania

Funder: This research was funded by a Australian Antarctic Science research grants to JSS (AAS 2201, 2948, 4127, 4180, 4633) by the Australian Antarctic Division (https://www.antarctica.gov.au/).

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