Unveiling the levant basin as a unique sink for plastic bags and packaging through comprehensive multi-marker analysis.

Plastic litter is ubiquitously distributed across the seafloor, yet the transport trajectories and settling mechanisms of such debris remain poorly defined. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of seabed litter collected via bottom trawls at depths ranging from 80 to 1300 m in the southeastern Mediterranean Sea, an oligotrophic marine system. Our results revealed one of the highest global concentrations of deep-sea plastic litter (up to 3321 ± 12 items/km), with plastic bags and packaging (PBPs) comprising over 91 % of total items.

Far-field effects of the Nile damming on the silica cycle in the Southeastern Mediterranean Sea.

Silica plays a key role in the growth of silicifying primary producers (e.g., diatoms) and hence the ocean carbon pump.

Spatial and temporal assessment of oil spills in the Mediterranean Sea.

Ship-generated oil pollution is a significant threat to the Mediterranean Sea. We present a geostatistical analysis of oil spills using three databases for the Mediterranean Sea: REMPEC (1977-2000) with 385 spills (17/year), ITOPF (1970-2018) with 167 spills (3.5/year) and EMSA (2015-2017) with 2066 detections (688/year).

The role of transport processes of particulate mercury in modifying marine anthropogenic secondary sources, the case of Haifa bay, Israel.

We have assessed the redistribution of a secondary source of sedimentary anthropogenic mercury in the Haifa bay (HB) area (SE Levantine basin), which is the northern sink for Nile-driven sand. A long-term (30years) ~80% decrease of the total sedimentary mercury concentrations (THg) was recorded in the inner bay, while an up to 3-fold increase was recorded in the top sediments of the outer bay. Sedimentary THg depth profiles and their temporal variability were used to model the main re-distribution processes, mainly resuspension associated with winter storm-derived transport.