LONDON, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Researchers have found microplastic fragments in a remote region of the Pyrenees mountains in France, showing that microplastics can travel in the atmosphere.
A team of researchers from British and French universities collected samples from the field site in southwest France which was previously regarded as uncontaminated.
According to their research paper published Monday in the Nature Geoscience, average daily counts of 365 deposits per square meter of microplastics were recorded in the samples.
"This mountainous area has been the subject of numerous interdisciplinary studies in ecology and environment over the past decade, but we would still never have anticipated that this latest study would reveal such high levels of microplastics deposits," said Gael Le Roux, one of the co-authors of the paper.
"An air mass trajectory analysis shows microplastic transport through the atmosphere over a distance of up to 95 km," according to the paper.
Previous researches suggested that digesting or breathing in microplastics can lead to changes in such behaviors as feeding and mating habits.
While the toxicity of microplastics has not been proved, researchers warned of possible menace of microplastic concentration to the environment and all living organisms.
