standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.| relation to other work | claim_relations | how this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies |
| claim type | claim_type | the shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null |
| concept | concepts | an idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it |
| content tag | content_tags | a finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper |
| contribution | contribution | what the paper claims to add |
| control | controls | an experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation |
| limitation | limitations | what the paper says its evidence cannot support |
| mechanism | mechanisms | how the reported effect is said to come about |
| method | method | how the paper produced its evidence |
| object of study | object_of_study | what the paper is about — the thing it investigates |
| phenomenon | phenomenon | the effect or regularity under study |
| research question | research_question | the question the paper sets itself |
| sense | senses | a distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it |
| transfer | transfers | a method or concept carried in from another field |
This record holds no relations between concepts. A layer is empty when the tagger recorded nothing in it — which is not the same as the paper having nothing to record.
| facet | tag | field | conf. | whose words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| object_of_study | how much buoyant plastic is floating in the North Pacific accumulation zone, of what sizes and types, and whether the amount is changing Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | object_of_study | the paper's words | |
| research_question | whether the mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been underestimated because the instruments used to measure it cannot catch its largest and rarest debris Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | research_question | the paper's words | |
| contribution | 79 (45-129) thousand tonnes and 1.8 (1.1-3.6) trillion pieces over 1.6 million km2, from 652 net tows plus 311 km2 of aerial imagery calibrated into a time-resolved transport model - four to sixteen times previous estimates, with the method difference and the rival explanation both named Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | contribution | the paper's words | |
| claim_type | existence Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | claim_type | the paper's words | |
| phenomenon | accumulation of buoyant plastic in a subtropical gyre, dominated by mass in objects large enough that a plankton net was never going to see them Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | phenomenon | the paper's words | |
| method | field-study Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: field-study | method | the paper's words | |
| mechanisms | the standard instrument is a 90 cm net developed for plankton, covering 0.008 km2 per tow; rare metre-scale objects carry most of the mass and are almost never inside such a sample, so the measured mass is a function of how much sea surface the instrument sees rather than of how much plastic is there Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: an aperture deciding an abundance | mechanisms[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| mechanisms | films are about 37% of PE and PP waste and are rarely found here; the paper's hypothesis is that thin objects foul, sink or fragment quickly, so the patch contains not the plastic that enters the ocean but the subset able to stay at the surface Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | mechanisms[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| mechanisms | particles displaced by a fraction of wind speed take wider orbits, are more likely to strand and more likely to leave the gyre; low-windage objects stay - which is why the best-fitting model has no wind term and why foam is abundant on Alaskan beaches and negligible in the patch Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | mechanisms[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| mechanisms | the patch's centre oscillates seasonally in longitude and inter-annually in latitude with ENSO and PDO, so calibrating measurements from one season against a flat multi-year average compares them with a smear rather than with a position - matching the climate indices of the sampling year improved the fit from 0.46 to 0.58 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: a moving target averaged into blur | mechanisms[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | the four-to-sixteen-fold increase over previous estimates could also be a real increase in pollution rather than a method difference, and the paper says so Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | the model predicts millions of tonnes in the region from accepted inputs while the surveys found tens of thousands - a two-orders-of-magnitude gap left open Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | the aerial survey deliberately trades false positives for false negatives: observers logged only what they were very confident about, so many possible debris features were never recorded Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | the mass estimates are conservative by construction - sampling concentrated inside the boundary, and the outer patch is modelled at over 100k tonnes Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | high-windage debris passing through the patch over longer periods is underestimated, because a monthly average spreads it over a larger area Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[4] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | both trawls were towed at an angle so the sampled width is likely smaller than the net width used in the area calculation, and vessel wake probably affected capture Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[5] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | debris may have broken during transport to the laboratory, biasing the size distribution Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[6] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | the degradation rate of synthetic polymers at sea is poorly understood, so how long the standing mass will persist cannot be estimated Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[7] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | plastic levels in the deep water and seafloor below the patch are unknown, so the inventory is of one layer only Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[8] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| limitations | the 28.1% marine-source share is taken from coastal clean-up data and observations at sea may imply much higher losses, so the source attribution may be wrong in either direction Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | limitations[9] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| transfers | Lagrangian particle advection with wave, wind and current forcing, carried from physical oceanography into an inventory of manufactured debris Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | transfers[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| transfers | a dated, located mass release - the 2011 Tohoku tsunami - used as a natural tracer experiment to constrain a transport parameter Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | transfers[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | two Manta and two large Neuston trawls towed simultaneously at the same 76 stations, and the paired results used to decide which device quantifies which size band Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: net aperture as the source of the reported size distribution - a single device cannot tell whether the sizes it misses are absent or merely uncaught · outcome: held | controls[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | 311 km2 surveyed from the air against 3.9 and 13.6 km2 by Manta and Mega tow, for the size class whose rarity is the whole problem Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: rarity being mistaken for absence - at trawl coverage a >50 cm object is a sampling accident, and the mass it carries cannot be estimated from its absence · outcome: held | controls[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | an experimental detection algorithm run over all 7,298 mosaics after the human pass, with every algorithm hit re-inspected by an observer before entering the database Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: observer oversight as the only check on the imagery, without letting the algorithm introduce false positives of its own · outcome: partial | controls[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | six forcing scenarios - current only, and 0.1 to 3% windage - each fitted against the same 277 cells of measured microplastic concentration Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: the chosen transport physics being assumed rather than selected; the regression coefficient falls monotonically as wind forcing is added, so the data picks · outcome: held | controls[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | three calibration windows tried in sequence - a flat 12-year average, a season-matched average, and an ENSO/PDO-matched pair of years - with the fit reported for each Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: an averaging window flattering the fit - the season-matched version was WORSE than the flat average and is reported as such before the better one is adopted · outcome: held | controls[4] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | measured microplastic concentrations sorted by whether they fell inside or outside the modelled 1 kg km-2 contour, as a test of the boundary the model drew Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: a boundary drawn to fit the story - the contrast is measured, 1.8 against 0.3 kg km-2 in the medians, rather than asserted from the map · outcome: held | controls[5] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | the model's windage behaviour checked against the recorded arrival times and object types of 2011 Tohoku tsunami debris on North American and Hawaiian shores Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: the windage parameterisation being unconstrained by any real trajectory - the tsunami provides a dated release of known objects that the model must reproduce · outcome: held | controls[6] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | exponential, linear, quadratic and cubic fits to the decadal concentration averages, with the coefficient of determination given for all four Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: the exponential being chosen because it makes the stronger claim - the three alternatives are fitted and their worse fits reported · outcome: held | controls[7] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | historical net tows sorted into inside-boundary, outside-but-subtropical, and rest-of-North-Pacific, with the third category excluded from the comparison Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: equatorial and polar samples deflating the around-the-patch baseline and manufacturing a contrast between inside and outside · outcome: held | controls[8] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | depth-integrated concentrations computed for every trawl station as a function of rising velocity, trawl depth and sea state, to correct for wind-driven mixing Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: buoyant plastic missed by a surface trawl because wind-driven mixing pushed it below the net · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held | controls[9] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| controls | all trawls designed to move away from the vessel so that wake would not affect capture efficiency Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: vessel wake disturbing the water the net samples - the trawls were angled away to reduce it, and the paper says the effect remained · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): partial | controls[10] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| concepts | GPGP Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: GPGP | concepts[0] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | microplastics Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: microplastics | concepts[1] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | megaplastics Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: megaplastics | concepts[2] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | windage coefficient Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: windage coefficient | concepts[3] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | ghostnets Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: ghostnets | concepts[4] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | Manta trawl Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: Manta trawl | concepts[5] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | aerial imagery Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: aerial imagery | concepts[6] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | mass concentration Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: mass concentration | concepts[7] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | numerical concentration Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: numerical concentration | concepts[8] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | ENSO Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: ENSO | concepts[9] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| concepts | biofouling Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: biofouling | concepts[10] | 0.95 | the paper's words |
| senses | GPGP plastic mass - MEASURED BY NET TRAWLS ALONE: about 4.8 thousand tonnes, from instruments developed to collect neustonic plankton Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| senses | GPGP plastic mass - NET TRAWLS PLUS VESSEL SIGHTINGS: about 21 thousand tonnes, at the cost of high uncertainty in estimating a sighted object's mass Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| senses | GPGP plastic mass - NET TRAWLS PLUS MEGA TRAWLS PLUS 311 km2 OF AERIAL IMAGERY: 79 (45-129) thousand tonnes, this study Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| senses | what dominates the patch - BY MASS: megaplastics and macroplastics, over three quarters of it, and 86% of the megaplastic mass is fishing nets Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| senses | what dominates the patch - BY COUNT: microplastics, 94% of 1.8 trillion pieces and only 8% of the mass Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[4] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| senses | how much plastic should be there - AS THE MODEL PREDICTS FROM ACCEPTED INPUTS: millions of tonnes Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[5] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| senses | how much plastic should be there - AS FOUND IN THE WATER: tens of thousands of tonnes, a two-orders-of-magnitude shortfall the paper leaves open Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | senses[6] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| claim_relations | qualifies → the two previous GPGP mass estimates, 4.8 k tonnes from net trawls alone and 21 k tonnes from trawls plus vessel sightings - attributed here mainly to weaker quantification of large debris, with a real increase in pollution named as an alternative Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | claim_relations[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| claim_relations | critiques → surface trawls developed for neustonic plankton, whose 0.5-1 m aperture cannot represent rarer and larger objects such as bottles, buoys and fishing nets Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | claim_relations[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| claim_relations | critiques → ocean plastic transport models integrated over several years and calibrated against datasets from different seasons and decades, which misrepresent processes that vary seasonally and inter-annually Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | claim_relations[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| claim_relations | qualifies → its own inventory - the estimates are conservative on three separate counts, and high-windage debris passing through the region is not captured by a monthly average Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | claim_relations[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| claim_relations | qualifies → accepted global plastic input budgets, which its own model turns into a prediction two orders of magnitude above what the surveys found Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | claim_relations[4] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | The GPGP holds an estimated 1.8 (1.1-3.6) trillion plastic pieces weighing 79 (45-129) thousand tonnes. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | The estimate is four to sixteen times earlier ones, mainly because of better quantification of macro- and megaplastics. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | microplastics are 8% of the mass and 94% of the pieces, so which size class dominates the patch depends entirely on the unit Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | Nets, ropes and lines are 52% of GPGP plastic mass, and fishing nets 86% of the megaplastic mass. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | microplastic concentration inside the patch rose exponentially from 0.4 kg km-2 in the 1970s to 1.23 kg km-2 in 2015, faster than in surrounding waters Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[4] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | the model predicts millions of tonnes in the region from accepted inputs while the surveys found tens of thousands - two orders of magnitude unaccounted for Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[5] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | plastic films are about 37% of PE and PP waste generation and were rarely found, suggesting only certain shapes persist at the surface Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[6] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | the best-fitting transport scenario used sea surface current alone, with fit falling monotonically as wind forcing was added Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.findings[7] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | defined in this study as the 1 kg km-2 modelled microplastic mass concentration contour, covering 1.6 million km2 and holding about 87% of the plastic in the model domain Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: GPGP | content_tags.definitions[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | the displacement of a particle expressed as a fraction of wind speed 10 m above sea level, tested here at 0, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2 and 3% Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: windage coefficient | content_tags.definitions[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | EVIDENCE CORRECTED (RE-GROUNDED - THE POINTER WAS WRONG, NOT THE CLAIM) · thousand tonnes of floating plastic in the GPGP, mid-point of a 45-129 k range Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. EVIDENCE CORRECTED: RE-GROUNDED - THE POINTER WAS WRONG, NOT THE CLAIM. The old evidence was verbatim, anchored and correctly cut, and it contained NONE of this claim's numbers (129, 45). The paper states the claim in one sentence elsewhere and the tagger did not use it. the project, 2026-08-23: 'WE HAVE SPENT THE DAY VERIFYING THAT QUOTES ARE REAL AND NONE OF IT ASKS WHETHER THEY ARE RELEVANT.' Confirmed by reading the claim, the old span and the candidate together; the candidate carries every number AND the claim's own content words. | content_tags.quantities[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | microplastics' share of the GPGP mass - against 94% of its pieces Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.quantities[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | microplastics' share of the 1.8 trillion pieces - against 8% of the mass Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.quantities[2] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | kg km-2, the mean megaplastic mass concentration - the highest of the four size classes, at 3.5 pieces km-2 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.quantities[3] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | pieces km-2 of microplastics - the highest count of the four size classes, at 2.5 kg km-2 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. | content_tags.quantities[4] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | R2 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: R2 | content_tags.statistics[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | SE Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: SE | content_tags.statistics[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | mass concentration Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: mass concentration | content_tags.variables[0] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
| content_tags | windage coefficient Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: windage coefficient | content_tags.variables[1] | 0.95 | the tagger's words |
Tags that could not be placed in the text:
What was deliberately not tagged, and why, is recorded per paper by the tagger. Where a paper has no such record, this page says so rather than implying that nothing was declined.