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Garbage Dump, Alaska
Photograph by Ken Graham/Getty Images
An open-air garbage dump tarnishes the sapphire coast of Barrow, Alaska. Trash that makes its way into the oceans decomposes very slowly, littering coastlines, polluting ground water, and harming marine creatures that mistake the trash for food.
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Oil Slick, Alaska
Photograph by Joel Sartore
Oil shimmers among rocks on Alaska's North Slope, a region where rich reserves of both wildlife and hydrocarbons have led to pitched battles between environmentalists and petroleum interests. Oil spills wreak havoc on coastal plants and marine animals. But high-profile incidents, such as the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska, tend to focus public attention on the issue of ocean pollution. Single-hulled oil tankers were outlawed in the U.S. after that devastating spill.
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Hazmat Workers, Texas
Photograph by Tyrone Turner
Hazmat workers remove an oil drum from Padre Island National Seashore in South Texas. Offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico put the pristine reserve, home to the longest undeveloped stretch of barrier island on Earth, in the path of discarded or lost industry debris.
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Garbage on Beach
Photograph by Bryan Mullennix/Getty Images
A miscellany of soda caps, drink cartons, and plastic scraps sits at the edge of an Acapulco, Mexico, beach. Plastic debris, which can take 500 years to decompose, made up more than half of the litter found on beaches in 2005.
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Beach Trash, Equatorial Guinea
Photograph by Joel Sartore
The world's oceans and beaches are strewn with manmade flotsam, much of it plastics, like this doll's leg on a black-sand beach on Equatorial Guinea's Bioko Island. Plastics are extremely durable and can drift on ocean currents for decades, leaching potentially toxic chemicals as they slowly decompose.
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Trash, Philippines
Photograph by China Photos, Getty Images
Sections of Manila Bay in the Philippines are so choked with trash, it's possible to walk across them without sinking. Street children like this boy regularly scavenge the bay's polluted waters seeking anything sellable.
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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill
Photograph by Ken Graham/Getty Images
A pool of saffron-colored oil paints swirls along Alaska's shoreline following the ExxonValdez oil spill in 1989. Although it was not large compared to other spills, the Valdez oil spill was one of the world's most ecologically devastating disasters, spoiling more than 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometers) of shoreline, including three national parks, three national wildlife refuges, and one national forest.
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Fishermen Confront Oil Spill
Photograph by Natalie Fobes
Fishermen confront oil-slicked waters in Eleanor Bay, Alaska, days after tanker ExxonValdez disgorged nearly 11 million gallons (41,640 kiloliters) of oil into Prince William Sound. The 1989 event is the worst oil spill in U.S. history and hurt generations of wildlife including salmon, sea otters, seals, and sea birds.
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Pollution Spill, South Florida
Photograph by Mike Theiss
South Florida's heavy rains can push toxic runoff and even untreated sewage into public waterways, where it eventually finds its way to the Atlantic Ocean. This swath of polluted water was released from Biscayne Bay following a storm that swept through North Miami Beach.
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Floating Trash, India
Photograph by Sebastian D'Souza/AFP/Getty Images
The city government of Mumbai, India, maintains workers like these to clear the thousands of pounds of trash that drift each day into the harbor near the famed Gateway of India monument.
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Galveston Bay Pollution, Texas
Photograph by Joel Sartore
Constant waterborne commerce at the Port of Houston, among the busiest in the United States, means accidents like this tallow spill in the Houston Shipping Channel are inevitable. The world's shipping lanes and ports are epicenters of manmade pollution, where accidental spills and deliberate dumping are commonplace.
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Oil-Coated Crab, Lebanon
Photograph by Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images
With the area's preponderance of fossil fuel-related commerce, the semi-enclosed Mediterranean Sea is particularly susceptible to oil spills. International animosities in the region aggravate the problem. This crab is negotiating an oil-fouled beach polluted when Israeli planes bombed a power station in Beirut, Lebanon, in 2006.
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Oil Pollution
Photograph by David Woodfall/Getty Images
Emulsified oil washes ashore after the MV Braer, a U.S.-owned oil tanker, ran aground in hurricane-force winds off the Shetland Islands. The 1993 spill emptied 93,366 short tons (84,700 metric tons) of oil into the North Sea.
Ocean Topics
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Acidification
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Ballard, Robert
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Bowermaster, Jon
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Cook-Wise
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De Rothschild, David
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Doubilet, David
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Earle, Sylvia
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Frozen Seafood Benefits
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Goodman, Beverly
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Habitat Destruction
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Invasive Species
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Kristof, Emory
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Marine Food Chain
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Marine Pollution
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Nicklen, Paul
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Norman, Brad
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Ocean Overview
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Overfishing
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Plastiki
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Pristine Seas Expeditions
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Sala, Enric
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Seafood Decision Guide
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Seafood Substitutions
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Sea Level Rise
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Sea Temperature Rise
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Seaver, Barton
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Sustainable Seafood
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Thys, Tierney
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Tips to Save the Ocean
World Oceans Summit
In association with National Geographic, The Economist is hosting the World Oceans Summit to examine the future of the seas and discuss sustainable use of the oceans. Speakers include National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and Enric Sala and World Bank President Robert Zoellick, among others. Valued members of the National Geographic Society community receive a 20 percent discount to attend the summit—reserve your place today (select ‘standard rate’ and enter discount code ‘NATGEO’).
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Citizens of the Sea
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