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People should also be aware of the possibility of radiation contamination, he said.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant leaked a large amount of radiation into the water in the wake of the tsunami, and no one knows what levels of contamination there are in the currents, and the items being carried in those currents, he said.
Ebbesmeyer suggested local police take steps to have sensitive Geiger counters available to scan items — just to be safe.
The event was unprecedented, and no one knows yet what levels of radiation, if any, items have picked up, he said
“Thought you might be interested” ping
Froatsah
Dude looks like a wax figure of John Glenn.
Scientists need computers to tell them that floats float better than non-floats. lol
I wonder what the chances of the debris still being radioactive? I am going to have to walk the beaches a bit more often on the north coast of Oregon.
What if we find a dead body in the middle of that debris? Who should we call?
First debris from Japanese earthquake/tsunami reaches Olympic Peninsula (Washington State)
The black floats are seen in the middle of the Pacific by the hundreds, and are not something that has been seen on Eastern Pacific beaches before, he said.
The floats are included in masses of black blobs supporting huge rafts of debris that include fishing boats, houses and possibly human bodies, Ebbesmeyer said.
[snip]
Shoes with remains or other possibly human remains found on beaches should be reported to the appropriate authorities, either police, sheriff’s deputies or park rangers, he said.
Pinging TLR.
I would think that ocean currents carrying radioactivity might have mixed with some of this debris, even though most of it would not have been radioactive (or any of it) when carried off by the tsunami.
I’ve been hearng about this story for months, but not one fly over picture of the aforementioned debris.
I received this email in response an email I sent alerting NOAA to some debris I found on a beach in Oregon recently that looks to be Japanese in origin.
-J.H
As you know, it is very difficult to discern debris from the Japan tsunami event. Movement of Japan tsunami marine debris across the North Pacific Ocean this quickly is unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility. We are working with numerous modelers to figure this out, as well as other partners to see if we can source-identify the debris that has been reported. Our findings will be published on our website, listed above.
If you are interested (and walk your local beach with some frequency), the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) has developed the attached Shoreline Survey Field Guide in order to evaluate and monitor the types and abundance of marine debris at a shoreline site. Effective monitoring of changes in environmental conditions, such as the abundance of marine debris, requires a good deal of forethought.
Monitoring projects should have clearly stated objectives and use agreed-upon methods and field measurements to allow for comparability of data with previous research and that conducted in other areas. Quality marine debris monitoring data can be used to assess spatial and temporal trends and measure the effectiveness of strategies to address the issue.
An electronic data sheet is provided to assist in your data analysis efforts. At this time the MDP does not have the capacity to regularly analyze monitoring data coming in from various groups. We are planning to conduct periodic calls for data; if you are interested in being included in data calls, please send an email to MD.monitoring@noaa.gov.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Best wishes for safe and informative shoreline surveys!
Neal Parry
NOAA Marine Debris
UPDATE
Fox News has some updated information on the debris field which may be of interest to readers, particularly those on the West Coast ;-)
Because it's from Fox News, I'm required to edit it heavily. I'll post the highlights here but going to the original article will be the best thing to do.
25 million tons of tsunami debris floating toward US shores - Fox News
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But no one's tracking the debris, Jim Churnside, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency's (NOAA) Marine Debris Program, told FoxNews.com.
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Churnside expects models of the debris path from last summer are probably accurate.
The debris is not expected to be radioactive. Carey Morishige, the Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, told science blog Earthsky.org that radioactivity is probably not an issue, since the tsunami carried most of the debris seaward before the failure of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor.
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(The pic below is a computer model/projection of the expected path....not an actual indicator of the current debris field position. More pics and a video are available at the Fox site.)
Coincidence, or alien plot?
Footage of The Doomsday Machine in action here: