Microplastics in marine sediments

Microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm in length. The data set consists of results of analyzes of the top layer (0-2 cm) bottom sediments in Norwegian sea and coastal areas, which show the amount of microplastic particles in surface sediments. Microplastics are measured in number of particles in 1kg sediment dry weight.

Date (Creation): 2020-01-15

Date (Publication): 2020-04-17

Date (Revision): 2023-01-30

Code: mikroplast_marine_sedimenter

Purpose: The purpose of the data set is to show where there is contamination by microplastics in marine sediments. This in turn can say something about sources, transport and accumulation areas for microplastics, and where marine organisms are most threatened by microplastics.

Status: On going

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Geological Survey of Norway	Aave Lepland	aave.lepland@ngu.no	Publisher
Geological Survey of Norway	Henning K. B. Jensen	henning.jensen@ngu.no	Owner

Maintenance and update frequency: As needed

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Menneskers helse og sikkerhet
Havområder

Nasjonal inndeling i geografiske initiativ og SDI-er

Norway Digital

Nasjonal tematisk inndeling (DOK-kategori)

Forurensning

Place

Coastal marine areas of Norway
Norwegian Sea
Barents Sea

Theme

seabed
sediment
marine
coast
fjord
contamination
microplastics
geochemistry
environment

Keywords

NGU
MAREANO

Spatial scope

National

Specific usage: Microplastics are common in our world today. They cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems from a variety of sources, including cosmetics, clothing, food packaging, and industrial processes. Because plastics degrade slowly (often over hundreds to thousands of years), microplastics have a high probability of ingestion, incorporation into, and accumulation in the bodies and tissues of many organisms. The toxic chemicals that come from both the ocean and runoff can also biomagnify up the food chain. Therefore it is important to map and monitore microplastics in oceans and terrestric ecosystems, to learn about distribution, sources, behavior etc., and to find the ways to reduce the microplastic pollution.

User contact info

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
			Owner

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Åpne data

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Norsk lisens for offentlige data (NLOD) 2.0

Classification: Unclassified

Spatial representation type: Text, table

Denominator: 10 000, 7 000 000

Language: Norwegian

Topic category

Environment

Supplemental Information: Datafilen er utstyrt med lenker til relevante geokjemirapporter for mer detaljert info om kartleggingen av uorganiske miljøgifter i forskjellige havområder.

Distribution format

Name	Version
Microsoft Excel

Units of distribution: Hele landet

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:DOWNLOAD-1.0-http--download	https://www.mareano.no/kart-og-data/kjemidata

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Statement: Sediment samples for geochemical and microplastic analyzes have been collected on cruises under the auspices of the MAREANO program in the sea areas, and along the coast in several different projects. Multicorer and boxcorer are used for sampling. Microplastics have been analyzed by the University of Ghent, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA). Results of all environmental geochemical investigations are collected in a joint database together with organic pollutants from the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (HI). For more information on the analysis methodology, see NGU's geochemistry reports and report appendices on microplastic analyses.