Oil residues can travel over 5,000 miles on ocean debris, study finds
2026-01-07
(Press-News.org) When oily plastic and glass, as well as rubber, washed onto Florida beaches in 2020, a community group shared the mystery online, attracting scientists’ attention. Working together, they linked the black residue-coated debris to a 2019 oil slick along Brazil’s coastline. Using ocean current models and chemical analysis, the team explains in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology how some of the oily material managed to travel over 5,200 miles (8,500 kilometers) by clinging to debris.
“The research findings of our study would not have been possible without the dedication of the Friends of Palm Beach,” says Bryan James, lead author of the study and a researcher at Northeastern University. “Their long-term knowledge of the local marine debris enabled them to notice when unique and interesting items like oily plastic comes ashore. If they hadn’t been willing to investigate and share their observations, this discovery would still be lost at sea.”
Although some plastics can drift thousands of miles on ocean currents, crude oil or refined petroleum usually doesn’t. Instead, sunlight and microbes break down oil within a few hundred miles (300 kilometers) of where it entered the water. So, in 2020, the source of oily plastic bottles and glass containers along the shore in Palm Beach, Florida, was curious to the Friends of Palm Beach cleanup group. With no spills reported nearby, the group’s main clues about the oil’s source were the bottle labels in Portuguese, Spanish and English, and large chunks of rubber that had also washed up. The group became community scientists as some members teamed up with international researchers led by James and Christopher Reddy at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to find the origin of the oil and plastic pollution.
James, Reddy and their colleagues hypothesized that the oily plastic and rubber littering the beach in Florida could have the same origin as similar pollution found on Brazil’s coast in late 2019. And the source of the oil and rubber might be the SS Rio Grande, a sunken World War II supply ship in the Atlantic Ocean. To test their hypothesis, the researchers conducted computer simulations and oil spill forensic analyses.
Origin: Ocean current models traced the plastic bottles backwards in time, predicting origins spanning from the Gulf of Mexico, Central America and Brazil.
Travel time: Additional models estimated that the oily debris drifted for 240 days, which is a timeframe consistent with currents carrying material from the 2019 Brazil oil spill to the Florida coast.
Chemical analyses: Several of the oily residues collected from the Florida debris showed evidence of refining, and the “chemical fingerprints” of the oily plastic matched those collected from the Brazil oil spill.
Reddy concludes that this work demonstrates an additive contaminant effect where plastic pollution can transport oil pollution far beyond its origin, and it expands on the current understanding of “petroplastic” — a recently recognized form of plastic pollution from humans.
The authors acknowledge collaboration from the Friends of Palm Beach and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, CNPq) Research Productivity Fellowship and PQ-1 grant, the Long Term Ecological Research Program-Semi-Arid Coast of Brazil (Programa de Pesquisa Ecológico de Longa Duração Costa Semiárida do Brasil, PELD-CSB), the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation-CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) fellowships, the I-plastics Consortium within the Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans Cearense Foundation for Scientific and Technological Development Support (Fundação Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico, FUNCAP), the Ceará Foundation for Scientific and Technological Development Support (FUNCAP) Chief Scientist Program, the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel within the Ministry of Higher Education in Brazil, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the State of Florida, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Independent Research and Development Program, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
###
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Note: ACS does not conduct research but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies.
Follow us: Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2026-01-07
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is among the most aggressive types of breast cancer, lacking estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors and thus relying primarily on cytotoxic chemotherapy. Despite initial responsiveness, many patients experience rapid relapse driven by cancer stem-like cells that survive chemotherapy and seed metastasis.
Addressing this unmet need, researchers led by Professor Jae Hong Seo from Korea University have discovered that pitavastatin, a widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering drug, can directly inhibit the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1, a key driver ...
2026-01-07
The origin of life on Earth becomes even more fascinating and complex as we peer into the mysterious world of viruses. Said to have existed since living cells first appeared, these microscopic entities differ greatly from other forms of life. Composed of only genetic material, they lack the ability to synthesize proteins, which are essential for carrying out cellular activity and, ultimately, for life by itself.
As a result, scientists have long sought to unravel virus origins, how they evolve, and how they fit into the conventional tree of life. Professor Masaharu Takemura from ...
2026-01-07
Cells have a remarkable housekeeping system: proteins that are no longer needed, defective, or potentially harmful are labeled with a molecular “tag” and dismantled in the cellular recycling machinery. This process, known as the ubiquitin-proteasome system, is crucial for health and survival. Now, an international team of scientists led by CeMM, AITHYRA and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund has identified a new class of small molecules that harness this natural system to accelerate the removal of an immune-modulating enzyme called IDO1. The findings, published in Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/s41557-025-02021-5), introduce a new concept in ...
2026-01-07
Research Highlights:
Light physical activity was associated with lower risk of death for adults in stages 2, 3 and 4 of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome, a health condition that includes heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes and obesity.
A one hour increase in light physical activity each day was associated with a 14% to 20% lower risk of death.
The association between light physical activity and lower risk of death was most pronounced for people with advanced CKM syndrome.
Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, January 7, 2026
DALLAS, ...
2026-01-07
WASHINGTON – Researchers have developed a new computational approach that uncovers possible drugs for specific cellular targets for treating glioblastoma, a lethal brain tumor. This approach enabled them to predict more effective treatment combinations to fight the disease on an individualized basis. This laboratory and computational research effort was led by scientists at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“The cellular targets we identified could be key to effectively fighting a disease that has seen only one new targeted drug approved in the last two decades,” says Nagi G. Ayad, PhD, senior author, associate director for translational ...
2026-01-07
An evidence-based web-app helped children with epilepsy to fall asleep on average 16.5 minutes earlier.
A new UK-wide clinical trial led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has evaluated a self-guided behavioural sleep programme for the parents of children with epilepsy.
The programme, which is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is called COSI (CASTLE Online Sleep Intervention) and consists of online videos and written guides based on clinically informed sleep intervention behavioural techniques.
“Sleep problems affect more than 80% ...
2026-01-07
Higher consumption of food preservatives, widely used in industrially processed foods and beverages to extend their shelf life, has been linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. These findings are the result of work carried out by researchers from Inserm, INRAE, Sorbonne Paris Nord University, Paris Cité University and Cnam, within the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (CRESS-EREN). They are based on health and dietary data from more than 100,000 adults participating in the NutriNet-Santé cohort study, and ...
2026-01-07
For the first time, an international research team led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has recorded a tiny mechanical “twitch” in living human and rodent eyes at the exact moment a rod photoreceptor detects light.
The research breakthrough could provide a new, non-invasive way to assess retinal health and enable earlier diagnosis of blinding eye diseases, according to the research team, which involves multiple institutions including the University of Washington (UW), Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI), and Duke-NUS Medical School.
Rod photoreceptors ...
2026-01-07
A new study co-led by the University of Oxford has found that global aviation emissions could be reduced by 50-75% through combining three strategies to boost efficiency: flying only the most fuel-efficient aircraft, switching to all-economy layouts, and increasing passenger loads. Crucially, the study shows that around a 11% reduction in global aviation emissions is achievable immediately, by using the most efficient aircraft that airlines already have more strategically on routes they already fly.
Published today (7 January) in Nature Communications Earth ...
2026-01-07
Waiting in an airport for a connecting flight is often tedious. A new study by MIT researchers shows it’s bad for business, too.
Looking at air travel and multinational firm formation over a 30-year period, the researchers measured how much a strong network of airline connections matters for economic growth. They found that multinational firms are more likely to locate their subsidiaries in cities they can reach with direct flights, and that this trend is particularly pronounced in knowledge industries. The degree ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Oil residues can travel over 5,000 miles on ocean debris, study finds
