disrupt the search on the surface. again, if you look at computer models, there aren t that many places in the world s oceans where you actually concentrate marine debris. there could be one here. most of the time it spreads out over time and drifts with currents. honestly, i haven t heard that. could be. unfortunately, our oceans are full of trash, particularly plastics. and, you know, you never want to see that. because you know that they dump a lot of garbage in the indian ocean. ships going back and forth. what do you know about this so-called garbage patch? well, as ellen said, there are a couple places in the ocean where we know things get concentrated on the surface by the winds and seas and the currents. but for the search they re doing on the ocean bottom, it s actually the opposite. many times when we go and use these auvs in coastal waters near a shoreline, you find lots of garbage on the bottom. fishing gear. oil drums. refrigerators. even cars dumped overboard or lost
and that is where all the plastic in the ocean kind of accumulates. there is five of them in each basin and one in the indian ocean. so everything that has been trend in thrown in the indian ocean is somewhere in this garbage patch. how do these patches form and is it possible, eric, at all to clean them up? well, they form essentially because the movement of the water is not two dimensional. it doesn t stay at the surface. it is kind of like a roller coaster ride where the water sinks and other places goes up. and the plastic is buoyant, so as the water sinks, the plastic stays behind. and in the meantime, more and more plastic is being carried into the regions by new water that sinks them. so it is kind of like this internal lube with the plastic
a lot of time when you use auvs you find a lot of garbage on the ocean bottom, things tossed overboards, barrels, cars, it s amazing cars? yes. each one of these things requires you to put the camera on it. sure. to make sure it s not what you re looking for. they re so far out in an area that s not trafficked that much in the indian ocean, that i don t expect there to be a lot of these sort of false positives on the ocean bottom. while there s a garbage patch, if they start picking up man-made objects it s most likely this. so far away from where mankind destroys the earth, it shouldn t affect the search to much, theoretically. distraught family members confront officials. why the daily briefings are more like cross-examinations next. two soldiers have been taken hostage in ukraine and six armored vehicles are now under russian control. but are russian people being
information of looking in a spot on the ocean floor and saying for certain there was nothing there helps you figure out where to look next. they send the bluefin down from a ship that s there in the indian ocean. it s going to have a lot of wear and tear on the men and women on that ship. just staying out there. absolutely. but these are professional mariners. they re used to going and spending months at sea at a time. that part doesn t worry me. as ellen said, the thing you have to start looking at is, you know, if there s a real big mechanical fault. something they can t fix on the deck right away. then you re going to have a problem in getting another vehicle out. we re now told, ellen, i don t know if you know about this, there s what they call a garbage patch in this area they re searching right now. potentially that could disrupt this whole search effort. what do you know, if anything, about that? you know, the whole idea of a garbage patch is sort of a misconception. wha
goes, the debris would be minimal. the debris from the missing plane is a drop in the bucket. roughly most of the debris found in the ocean starts on land. the oceans are vast, so this single tragedy with the missing airplane is not really going to make a dent in ocean pollution. reporter: but perhaps the sight of all that junk will make people think before they throw it away. stephanie elam, cnn, santa monica, california. thank you, stephanie for that report. i m joined by an oceanographer at the university of new south wales in australia, thank you for joining us. you re an expert in this particular part of the indian ocean. have you been surprised by the amount of ocean debris found versus a lack of debris from the plane? no, not at all. we ve known for a very long time that especially the recent search area, the new search area that they re looking at now, that there is a lot of debris there. because it is close to what we call the garbage patch.