OCEAN · THE 5 GYRES & GARBAGE PATCHES
The 5 Gyres & Garbage Patches
The five great subtropical gyres — the slow, planet-scale whirlpools of the surface ocean — drawn as rotating loops, each with the garbage patch that collects in its calm centre. The pollution lesson on the map: where our plastic ends up, and the honest truth that a garbage patch is a diffuse soup of microplastics, not a solid island you can walk on.
This overlay is live on the Ocean map now — open the Ocean hub and switch on “The 5 Gyres & Garbage Patches” to explore it.Open the Ocean map →
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