The Garbage Patch

"It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill. How did all the plastic end up here?"

Susan Casey´s "Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic... Are We?"

Map of the gyre. The blue square represents one study of the garbage patch.
My fractal image wants to represent the surprise before the horror. I think it is the first time the Garbage Patch has been graphically represented, except for photos. For those that want to read the six page description which leads me into the adventure of making an image tied with the reality, it is here:

The Newtown Creek spill

One of the world’s largest underground oil spills lurks beneath the shores of Newtown Creek in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, courtesy of oil companies such as ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and others. At approximately 17 million gallons and 55 acres, the spill is at least 6 million gallons larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The spill is the result of leaks in the 1940s and 1950s. ExxonMobil neglected the spill for more than two decades, as it slowly migrated under the community and into the creek.

excerpt of Greenpoint Oil Spill on Newtown Creek,

from riverkeeper.org

Pollution´s real image at Newtown Creek

Devastating Beauty

When it comes to mixing oil and water, oceans suffer from far more than an occasional devastating spill. Disasters make headlines, but hundreds of millions of gallons of oil quietly end up in the seas every year, mostly from non-accidental sources.

Used engine oil can end up in waterways. An average oil change uses five quarts; one change can contaminate a million gallons of fresh water. Much oil in runoff from land and municipal and industrial wastes ends up in the oceans.

Every year oily road runoff from a city of 5 million could contain as much oil as one large tanker spill.

Every year, bilge cleaning and other ship operations release millions of gallons of oil into navigable waters, in thousands of discharges of just a few gallons each.

Air pollution, mainly from cars and industry, places hundreds of tons of hydrocarbons into the oceans each year. Particles settle, and rain washes hydrocarbons from the air into the oceans.

Only about 5 percent of oil pollution in oceans is due to major tanker accidents, but one big spill can disrupt sea and shore life for miles.

excerpts from "Ocean Planet," a 1995 Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition

Oil on the Sea

from "The Indian Ocean - A Perspective"

Glacier Melt

Global sea level is currently rising as a result of both ocean thermal expansion and glacier melt, with each accounting for about half of the observed sea level rise, and each caused by recent increases in global mean temperature. Antarctica and Greenland, the world's largest ice sheets, make up the vast majority of the Earth's ice. If these ice sheets melted entirely, sea level would rise by more than 70 meters - according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Dirty Water

As the globe's temperature rises and the earth's weather patterns go haywire, water is quickly becoming a hot topic elsewhere. Floods are sweeping through new areas, while others are drying out faster than ever. We've long had the luxury of holding a cavalier attitude about the water we use, and more often than not that attitude has led us to unnecessary waste and pollution of water. The world's supply of fresh water is running out. Already one person in five has no access to safe drinking water

excerpt from "Ten Facts About the Water We Waste"