Talk:North Pacific Gyre

Rubber ducks travelling the seas

I have added the following to the talk pages for Rubber duck and North Pacific Gyre.

There is a story about yellow plastic ducks travelling the seas, after being lost from a cargo ship in 1992.

• This link is already in the rubber duck article: [1].
• This link involves the North Pacific Gyre: [2].
• Other links to the story include [3], [4], [5], [6].

I think this story deserves to be documented in the Wikipedia — it is amusing, interesting, notorious, and of some scientific significance. Can anyone find a good article title, and write this? --Niels Ø 10:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks like an excellent addition, but does it need its own article? It could easily be put under the section of this page dealing with famous interactions between flotsam and the gyre. I'd add it myself, but I'm a little snowed under with non-Wiki work at present! Ziggurat 22:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think the rubber duck story explicitly involves the North Pacific Gyre, so I don't think it belongs here, other than as a reference.--Niels Ø 10:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

But see Friendly Floatees!--Niels Ø 20:50, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Lego

", and LEGOS in 1997." "* LEGOs and Other Floating Flotsam (from Miami Herald 5/98)" I have removed these from the article seeing as they refer to the Atlantic Gyre, not the North Pacific Gyre. If someone creates an article for the Atlantic Gyre, they could definitely go there. Ziggurat 19:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Great Pacific Garbage Patch as a separate article

The garbage patch should be a seperate article, as it it pretty fascinating and distinct from the ancient natural feature on this page. It is roughly the size of Africa, it occasionally drifts to Hawaii and coats the beaches, and people should be more aware of it's existence. I would like to write it but the link I put in the text GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH redirects to NORTH PAC GYRE. does anyone know how to undo the link? Brallan 21:00, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that it should be separated, as the two are so closely linked and information on it fits here with no problems. Perhaps it would be better to add the information to this article instead of starting a new one? In any case, if you want to separate them out (as I said, I'm against it, but it's a free Wikipedia :) you should edit this link: [7]. Regards, Ziggurat 21:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I think they should be separated out. Suppafly 12:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Both articles would be very short, and I think most readers would want to read both anyway. I suggest levaing things as they are, at least till the article has grown a good deal longer (if ever that happens).--Niels Ø 13:41, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to simply create separate sections of a single page. It would be repetitive to need to include the natural reasons for the Garbage Patch on it's own page.69.249.105.5 22:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunatly, the discussion of Moore's 2001 article is incorrect, as he doesn't state that the size of the garbage is the size of Texas; he merely presents a ratio of pieces of plastic per square kilometer of 3x10^6.Dondelelcaro 03:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Pictures?

I'm wondering why there are no pictures here? Is the Pacific Garbage Patch not visible from the surface? Is it difficult to photograph? This isn't so much a comment about this page as a question about coverage of this topic in general. The Pacific Garbage Patch is described as being the size of Texas. Why is it that there seem to be almost no photographs of something so large? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mattmorg55 (talk • contribs) 17:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

Rather than biodegrading, plastic photodegrades, disintegrating in the ocean into smaller and smaller pieces. This is the reason why; most of the plastic is too small to see. I have heard that if you trawl the area with a fine net, though, you'll come up with a sand-like mass of white & blue plastic particles. -153.18.148.134

That shouldn't matter. You can see plankton blooms on satellite photographs, and that's single cell life forms - significantly smaller than sand-sized pieces of plastic. If there was a plankton bloom the size of texas, it would be easily seen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.73 (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I would like to third the request for pictures or even a map, it would add so much to this story but I am not expert enough to produce a map myself.24.17.110.223 17:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Waste portion removed, does not exist

The waste portion of the article was completely made up by Greenpeace and all article on the web discussing the phenomena also link back to Greenpeace and no true independent scientific source. It should be treated as suspect and kept from ever being included in the article until independent scientists validate such claims.

While it is true waste in the oceans is a probem, the problem described by these sources would be of a magnitude hundreds of time greater than the Alaskan oil spill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.224.103 ([[User Link titletalk:69.125.224.103|talk]]) 16:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I originally came to this page to read about the "plastic continent the size of texas". I agree that there is no reliable source for this and am also skeptical about the size of some of these complaints. However, I did restore the pollution section as some of the claims may be valid. Please add additional sources which either complement or disprove these existing claims. I am not comfortable with removing the majority of the article without proof, one way or the other. Thanks. Turtlescrubber 17:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I agree the issue of waste should remain until irrefutably disproven. ↔ Dennywuh 23:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it's almost the opposite. The waste needs to be proven with reliable sources to remain in it's current form. Feel free to chime in with proper sources that prove these claims. Turtlescrubber 00:44, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

That the waste is there has been proven beyond any doubt, the only issues are its size and consequences. A few sources for your perusal:

• Floating plastic in the Kuroshio Current area, western North Pacific Ocean — Rei Yamashita and Atsushi Tanimura [Marine Pollution Bulletin; volume 54, issue 4, pages 485-488 (2007)]
• Movement and accumulation of floating marine debris simulated by surface currents derived from satellite data — Masahisa Kubota, Katsumi Takayama and Noriyuki Horii [School of Marine Science and Technology, Tokai University (2000)] http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/documents/swt/posters2000/kubota.pdf
• Pelagic plastics and other seaborne persistent synthetic debris — M R Gregory and P G Ryan [Marine Debris: Sources, Impacts, Solutions; pages 49-66 — J M Coe and D B Rogers (1997)]
• A comparison of plastic and plankton in the North Pacific Central Gyre — Charles J Moore, Shelly L Moore, Molly K Leecaster and Stephen B Weisberg
• Density of plastic particles found in zooplankton trawls from coastal waters of California to the North Pacific Central Gyre — Charles J Moore, Gwen L Lattin and Ann F Zellers
• The quantitative distribution and characteristics of neuston plastic in the North Pacific Ocean, 1984-1988 — R H Day, D G Shaw and S E Ignell (1990)

The kind of people who think it's acceptable to decimate articles just because they're unable to find corroboration via a quick Google search shouldn't be editing an enciclopædia. ↔ Dennywuh 12:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Once again I disagree with you. I believe the people adding the information bear the burden of proof and not the ones who are trying to remove incorrect or unverified information. Please, by all means, do some work on the article. However, if you think it's okay to say that there is a solid land mass the size of texas rotating in this gyre with out proof, then you are dead wrong. Most wikipedia edits provide important functions, like the anon above that brought this matter to our attention. Maybe it's people with dismissive attitudes towards well meaning editors who shouldn't be allowed to edit?Turtlescrubber 13:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Turtlescrubber: This article has included mention of floating debris since its creation by Ziggurat in November 2005. I agree that since then sources and references may have been scarce, but at least the most current and widely-known aspect of the North Pacific Gyre, the accumulation of flotsam in the area, has been addressed on the page.

Yesterday, the unnamed user with IP 69.125.224.103 excised all references to waste, the majority of the text of the article, because he/she was unable to find scientific backing on the Web other than a report publicised by Greenpeace in Oct-Nov 2006. This user, a) did no research other than a Web search, and b) assumed Greenpeace was an unreliable source. Exclusively on the basis of these two actions he/she decided to do away with the considered and researched work of many previous editors. That is what I was objecting to in my earlier comment. I apologise if my words seemed to be aimed at you, nothing was further from my intention, I'm aware it was you who reinstated the paragraphs after their deletion. Nevertheless, I think you err when you defend the unnamed editor by calling him/her "well meaning". If that was the case and the user was indeed acting in good faith, he/she would not have edited out the majority of the article without first bringing up the issue on this talk page. You acknowledged this yourself when you reverted the edits and stated, in your first comment, "I am not comfortable with removing the majority of the article without proof".

I wish to defend myself from your accusation of "think[ing] it's okay to say there is a solid land mass the size of texas rotating in this gyre". This is a fallacious and snide comment, as neither the article nor myself have implied such a thing, mainly because the debris is not solid, is not land, and any reference to Texas had been removed from the text before the unnamed edit.

And finally, when you say "like the anon above that brought this matter to our attention", I believe you mean "brought this matter to my attention", as you seem to be the only one to have just found out. ↔ Dennywuh 15:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

the problem is even evidence from other sources on the web are using Greenpeaces information as the basis of their source. If the Greenpeace information has been constantly considered very suspect, how can you trust any other information based on it that just ultimately goes back to the Greenpeace source.

The information should at least have a notation that it is suspect, since there is absolutely no independent scientific claims beyond Greenpeace's own scientists.