npr:

The largest habitat for life on Earth is the deep ocean. It’s home to everything from jellyfish to giant blue-fin tuna. But the deep ocean is being invaded by tiny pieces of plastic — plastic that people thought was mostly floating at the surface, and in amounts they never imagined.

Very few people have looked for microplastic concentrations at mid- to deep-ocean depths. But there’s a place along the California coast where it’s relatively easy: The edge of the continent takes a steep dive into the deep ocean at Monterey Bay. Whales and white sharks swim these depths just a few miles offshore.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute perches on the shoreline. At an MBARI dock, you can see on of their most sophisticated tools for doing that: a multi-million-dollar machine called Ventana sitting on the deck of the research vessel Rachel Carson. “It’s a massive underwater robot,” explains Kyle Van Houtan, chief scientist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which collaborates with MBARI. “Robotic arms, a lot of sensors, machinery, lights, video cameras.”

Read the full story here