Séminaire “Microplastics in continental sediments and sedimentary cores” par Johnny Gasperi (UGE)

The Sedi-PLAST project – Microplastics (MP) in continental sediments and sediment cores, 2020-2024 – is funded by the French Research Agency (ANR). This project aims to investigate, using various sedimentological approaches, the contamination of river sediments by MP (> 25 µm) in order to understand the relations between depositional environments (mineralogical composition, texture and residence time of the sediment) and the concentrations, and size and polymer distribution of MP found in the sediments. Through a study of sedimentary cores, which is particularly innovative and original, the project objective includes evaluating the temporal trajectories of plastic pollution at the scale of anthropized watersheds. This presentation will present main findings and results obtained during this project on surface sediments for the Loire River, as well as core and dated sediments on the Rhone River.