Technology Helps Determine Extent of Seafloor Dumpsite
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. An area encompassing more than 36,000 acres containing more than 27,000 “barrel-like” images lying on the seafloor, stretching between Catalina Island and the coast off Los Angeles, has been documented by marine scientists.
The discovery was made during an expedition led by University of California–San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Although widely reported in the media that the barrels contain the harmful chemical compound DDT, that information has not been confirmed.
Eric Terrill, director of the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and chief scientist for the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, told the Epoch Times that the expedition survey did not measure the exact contents inside the discovered barrel field.
Around 25,000 Barrels of Suspected DDT Has Been Found Off the California Coast gizmodo.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gizmodo.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
LOS ANGELES â When the research vessel Sally Ride set sail for Santa Catalina Island to map an underwater graveyard of DDT waste barrels, its crew had high hopes of documenting for the first time just how many corroded containers littered the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles.
But as the scientists on deck began interpreting sonar images gathered by two deep-sea robots, they were quickly overwhelmed. It was like trying to count stars in the Milky Way.
The dumpsite it turned out, was much, much bigger than expected. After spending two weeks surveying a swath of seafloor larger than the city of San Francisco, the scientists could find no end to the dumping ground. They couldâve kept going in any direction, they said, and uncovered even more.
entire
city to see this through.
My next step was to get a second (or, really, third) opinion. I reached out to experts at the University of California, Irvine; the California Institute of Technology; the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists Southern California chapter; and the California Department of Conservation. Several ignored my request, and several politely declined, saying that climate classification in Southern California is not their area of expertise.
Eventually, I was connected with Jon Keeley, a research scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey. Stationed at Sequoia National Park, Keeley spent 20 years teaching at Occidental College. If anyone could clear this up, I hoped it would be him.