The deep sea is a major sink for microplastic debris — TEI-tagged view

Lucy C. Woodall, Anna Sànchez‐Vidal, Miquel Canals, Gordon Paterson, Rachel Coppock, Victoria A. Sleight, Antoni Calafat, Alex D. Rogers, Bhavani E. Narayanaswamy, Richard C. Thompson · 2014 · environmental-science · doi:10.1098/rsos.140317 · TEI xml · tagged edition · index · concepts · authors
Where this record's text came from. 2026-08-21 schema-0.3 pass: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
microplastics 2 fields
Tags on this paper every tag the record carries, whether or not the words occur in the text below — a number is how many papers in the corpus carry that tag; a tag with no number is unique to this paper
microplastics15 microfibres2 Rayon polyester2 missing fraction deep-sea sediments marine snow dense shelf water cascading quality index specific gravities octocorals field-study17
Method, as described: sediment cores and coral specimens from seven cruises by two independent teams, density-separated with NaCl or Ludox-TM 40, picked under a binocular microscope and identified by FT-IR against a spectral library that had the investigators' own clothing and gloves added to it

Our tag layer for this paper

Cross-disciplinary analysis
content-tags & facets: phenomenon · claim-type · cross-domain-transfer · mechanism · claim-relation · replication-status · limitation — grounded in the full text
phenomenonaccumulation of plastic microfibres on the deep-sea floor - a repository large enough to bear on the missing-plastic budget, and unsampled until now— “The prevalence of plastic microfibres in all sediment cores and on all coral colonies examined suggests this contaminant is ubiquitous in the deep sea. Furthermore, the wide variety of polymer types detected reveals that the accumulation and deposition of microfibres in the deep sea is complex and that they arise from a variety of domestic…
claim-typeexistence— “Identification by FT-IR spectroscopy confirmed that microplastics were abundant in all 12 sediment samples and all coral samples. The microplastics were all fibrous in shape, were commonly 2–3 mm in length and less than 0.1 mm in diameter (electronic supplementary material, figure S1). Plastic microfibre abundance in the sediments ranged from…
method — evidence— “We added the spectra of potential contaminants, such as those from waterproofs and laboratory gloves used during sample collection and processing, to the Plymouth University FT-IR library in order to eventually eliminate any contamination from the data. No matches with these materials were found in any of the samples.”
object of study — evidence— “However, despite the durability of plastic, and the exponential increase in its production, monitoring data show limited evidence of concomitant increasing concentrations in marine habitats. There appears to be a considerable proportion of the manufactured plastic that is unaccounted for in surveys tracking the fate of environmental plastics.…
research question — evidence— “Here, we present results from a global analysis of deep-sea sediment collected by two independent research teams during seven research cruises between September 2001 and August 2012, in the Mediterranean Sea, SW Indian Ocean and NE Atlantic Ocean (spanning subtropical to subpolar waters). The purpose of this study was to quantify the…
contribution — evidence— “Here, we show that deep-sea sediments are a likely sink for microplastics. Microplastic, in the form of fibres, was up to four orders of magnitude more abundant (per unit volume) in deep-sea sediments from the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean than in contaminated sea-surface waters. Our results show evidence for…
transferfrom physical oceanography: particle-transport mechanisms carried from physical oceanography - cascading, convection, saline subduction, canyon funnelling and Taylor columns - to explain how a textile fibre reaches the abyssal floor
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transfers[0]
transferfrom biological oceanography: marine snow, a biological-oceanography construct for aggregated organic debris, used as the vehicle that makes a buoyant synthetic fibre settle
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transfers[1]
mechanismbuoyancy reversed by what grows on the particle a positively buoyant plastic floats when it enters the sea, and fouling by organisms and adherence of particles change its density over weeks to months until it sinks - so the compartment a plastic is found in is a function of how long it has been there
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mechanisms[0]
mechanismaggregation as a delivery route surface tension and currents hold most plastic at the surface; colonisation, adherence to phytoplankton and aggregation into marine snow bind fibres into larger, faster-settling particles, which is how a fibre reaches 3500 m
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mechanisms[1]
mechanismcanyons as conduits for particle-loaded water dense shelf water cascading, coastal storms, offshore convection and saline subduction all move large volumes of particle-loaded water downslope, carrying a full spectrum of grain sizes together with litter and contaminants, and submarine canyons concentrate the flow
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mechanisms[2]
mechanisma recording rule deciding an abundance the fibres are the most numerous particle type in shallow habitats, so a protocol that does not enumerate fibres returns a low number from sediment that contains many - the difference between the two deep-sea reports is a decision about what to write down, and the authors demonstrated it on split samples rather than arguing it
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mechanisms[3]
critiques routine environmental monitoring of plastic debris, which has produced little evidence of the expected increase and leaves temporal trends unresolved in most datasets because microplastics were not included
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claim_relations[0]
qualifies the one previous report of microplastics in the deep sea, whose very low abundance is attributed here to a protocol that did not enumerate fibres - tested on split samples, not asserted
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claim_relations[1]
extends Van Cauwenberghe et al., with which this paper is offered jointly as the first evidence of global sinks for microplastic debris - the same study it corrects on method
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claim_relations[2]
qualifies its own headline comparison - the four-orders-of-magnitude figure is qualitative, and no statistical comparison between samples is attempted
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claim_relations[3]
critiques the field's methodological inconsistency, which the authors say must be fixed before robust temporal and spatial comparisons are possible at all
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claim_relations[4]
sensedeep-sea microplastic abundance - UNDER THE PREVIOUS PROTOCOL: very low, from a method that did not enumerate fibres at all
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senses[0]
sensedeep-sea microplastic abundance - UNDER THIS PROTOCOL, ON THE SAME SPLIT SAMPLES: substantially greater, with the other method shown to underestimate
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senses[1]
sensethe reported count - AS A COUNT OF FIBRES: 13.4 pieces per 50 ml, 1.4 to 40 across the cores, every one of them fibrous in shape
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senses[2]
sensethe reported count - AS A COUNT OF PLASTIC: a minority of it, since rayon is 56.9% of the fibres and the authors state that rayon is not a plastic
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senses[3]
sensethe comparison with surface water - AS THE ABSTRACT PUTS IT: up to four orders of magnitude more abundant per unit volume than contaminated sea-surface waters
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senses[4]
sensethe comparison with surface water - AS THE DISCUSSION QUALIFIES IT: qualitative, because different methods sample the two compartments
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senses[5]
controlevery preservation and processing fluid filtered through a 32 um sieve before use, and the fresh and salt water supplies sampled for an hour daily and screened for fibres — held
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— rules out the laboratory's own water as the source of the fibres - a fibre that arrived in the rinse would be indistinguishable from one that arrived from the seafloor
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controls[0]
controlthe spectra of the actual waterproofs and laboratory gloves used during collection and processing added to the FT-IR reference library, so that a fibre shed from them would be identified as such rather than as an unknown polymer — held
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— rules out the investigators' own equipment as the source of the identified polymers - without the spectra in the library a glove fibre matches nothing and is simply an unmatched particle
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controls[1]
controlall residue sediment checked for the larger plastic particles the previous deep-sea study described, not only for the fibres this study was looking for — held
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— rules out this protocol having simply traded one blind spot for another - the check asks whether the particles the other method counts were present and missed
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controls[2]
controltwo extraction methods used by two independent teams, with the specific gravities of the separating substances reported against each other - 1.2 for NaCl, 1.16 for Ludox — partial
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— rules out either laboratory's separation chemistry as the source of the result, to the extent that a float separation is characterised by its density
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controls[3]
controltheir own deep-sea samples split and run through both this protocol and the protocol of the one previous deep-sea study, rather than comparing published numbers — held
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— rules out a real difference between sites as the explanation of the disagreement with the previous report - the same sediment cannot differ from itself
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controls[4]
controldamp filter paper exposed to the laboratory air whenever samples were open, as a check on airborne contamination during processing — held — rules out airborne microplastic fibres settling into the samples during processing - the whole finding is fibres in deep-sea sediment, and the laboratory air is the rival source
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controls[5]
controlnatural fibre clothing only, with 100% cotton coats and headwear and latex gloves, for all laboratory processing and for the JC76T cruise — held — rules out synthetic fibres shed from the handlers' own clothing, which would be indistinguishable from the microplastic being counted
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controls[6]
controlFT-IR acceptance thresholds on the spectral quality index - 0.7 and above accepted, 0.6 to 0.7 inspected individually, below 0.6 rejected — held — rules out false polymer identifications from poor-quality FT-IR spectra, with the middle band inspected by hand rather than accepted or dropped wholesale
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controls[7]
weightroutine environmental monitoring of plastic debris, which has produced little evidence of the expected increase and leaves temporal trends unresolved in most datasets because microplastics were not included — 0.95
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claim_relations[0]
weightthe one previous report of microplastics in the deep sea, whose very low abundance is attributed here to a protocol that did not enumerate fibres - tested on split samples, not asserted — 0.95
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claim_relations[1]
weightVan Cauwenberghe et al., with which this paper is offered jointly as the first evidence of global sinks for microplastic debris - the same study it corrects on method — 0.9
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claim_relations[2]
weightits own headline comparison - the four-orders-of-magnitude figure is qualitative, and no statistical comparison between samples is attempted — 0.95
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claim_relations[3]
weightthe field's methodological inconsistency, which the authors say must be fixed before robust temporal and spatial comparisons are possible at all — 0.9
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claim_relations[4]
differs in (stated by the tagger, no quotation)Rayon —contrasted-with→ polyester — how much of the reported abundance each supplies, and whether it is a plasticconcept_edges[1]
relationRayon —contrasted-with→ polyester — rayon supplies more than twice the count polyester does, and only one of the two is a plastic
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concept_edges[1]
weightRayon —contrasted-with→ polyester — 0.95
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concept_edges[1]
auditmicrofibres —contrasted-with→ deep-sea sediments — Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its span and kept, but the span contrasts sediment with sea-surface studies; the endpoints are loose.
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concept_edges[2]
differs in (stated by the tagger, no quotation)microfibres —contrasted-with→ deep-sea sediments — whether the compartment or the sampling method produces the size distributionconcept_edges[2]
relationmicrofibres —contrasted-with→ deep-sea sediments — sediment studies find mostly fibres while sea-surface studies find mostly larger fragments, and which is real cannot yet be decided
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concept_edges[2]
weightmicrofibres —contrasted-with→ deep-sea sediments — 0.9
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concept_edges[2]
outcomecontrol — held
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controls[0]
outcomecontrol — held
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controls[1]
outcomecontrol — held
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controls[2]
outcomecontrol — partial
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controls[3]
outcomecontrol — held
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controls[4]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — held
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controls[5]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — held
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controls[6]
outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation)control — held
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controls[7]
limitationno statistical comparison of abundance or composition between samples is possible - the authors name the lack of replicates, the small sample size and the methodological differences, and decline to make one
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limitations[0]
limitationthe four-orders-of-magnitude comparison with surface water is qualitative, because surface waters and sediments are sampled by different methods
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limitations[1]
limitationwhether fibres dominate sediment and fragments dominate the surface is a real distribution or an artefact of sampling method cannot be determined at present
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limitations[2]
limitationthe precise origin of individual microplastic debris cannot currently be established, although the polymer types point to diverse domestic and industrial sources
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limitations[3]
limitationthe coral samples were never quantitative - fibres were not extracted exhaustively and only presence or absence was recorded
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limitations[4]
limitationrayon, which the authors state is not a plastic, is included in the counts and supplies 56.9% of the fibres reported
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limitations[5]
limitationthe 4 billion fibres per square kilometre figure is an extrapolation, offered on the most conservative estimates
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limitations[6]
limitationfew studies examine the biological effects of microplastics at all, so what this abundance implies for harm is not established here
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limitations[7]
Content tags
content-observations: finding · quantity · variable · definition · key-term — grounded in the full text
finding
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content_tags.findings[0]
finding
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content_tags.findings[1]
finding
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content_tags.findings[2]
finding
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content_tags.findings[3]
finding
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content_tags.findings[4]
finding
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content_tags.findings[5]
quantityrayon's share of the total number of fibres seen - the majority of the reported count, and not a plastic
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content_tags.quantities[0]
quantitypolyester's share OF THE REMAINING fibres, i.e. of the non-rayon fraction, not of the total
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content_tags.quantities[1]
quantitythe range of plastic microfibre abundance across the sediment cores, in pieces per 50 ml
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content_tags.quantities[2]
quantityfibres per square kilometre of Indian Ocean seamount sediment, extrapolated on the most conservative estimates
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content_tags.quantities[3]
quantitythe specific gravity of the Ludox-TM 40 separation, against 1.2 for the NaCl one - the number the two teams' comparability rests on
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content_tags.quantities[4]
variablemicroplastic abundance
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content_tags.variables[0]
variablequality index
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content_tags.variables[1]
definitionRayon
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content_tags.definitions[0]
definitionquality index
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content_tags.definitions[1]
Concepts
terms this paper carries, each with the sentence it was cut from — the layer that joins one paper to another. Terms with no quote yet are on CONCEPTS.html.
conceptmicroplastics — not defined in this paper's own words; microscopic plastic fragments and fibres; here operationally everything the pickers judged unnatural and the spectrometer matched, rayon included
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concepts[0]
conceptmicrofibres — not defined in this paper's own words; the fibrous fraction, 2-3 mm long and under 0.1 mm across - the whole of what was found here, and the fraction the previous deep-sea survey did not count
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concepts[1]
conceptRayon — not defined in this paper's own words; a man-made semi-synthetic polymer that is not a plastic, included in this paper's counts and contributing 56.9% of the fibres seen
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concepts[2]
conceptpolyester — not defined in this paper's own words; the most prevalent actual plastic among the remaining fibres at 53.4%, and less than half as abundant as the rayon
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concepts[3]
conceptmissing fraction — not defined in this paper's own words; the manufactured plastic that environmental surveys cannot locate - the budget discrepancy this paper offers a sink for
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concepts[4]
conceptdeep-sea sediments — not defined in this paper's own words; the compartment proposed as the repository; more than 300 million square kilometres of it, sampled here to 3500 m
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concepts[5]
conceptmarine snow — not defined in this paper's own words; aggregation with organic debris and small particles, which makes a buoyant fibre sink - the transport mechanism the paper leans on
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concepts[6]
conceptdense shelf water cascading — not defined in this paper's own words; one of the oceanographic processes carrying particle-loaded shallow water to depth, with submarine canyons as preferential conduits
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concepts[7]
conceptquality index — not defined in this paper's own words; the FT-IR spectral match score; 0.7 and above accepted, 0.6 to 0.7 inspected by hand, below 0.6 rejected
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concepts[8]
conceptspecific gravities — not defined in this paper's own words; 1.2 for the NaCl float and 1.16 for the Ludox one - the number the two teams' methods are argued to be comparable on
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concepts[9]
conceptoctocorals — not defined in this paper's own words; the living surfaces on which microfibres had also accumulated, sampled at four Indian Ocean sites and recorded only as present or absent
Quotation withheld — this paper is not ours to reproduce, and the page has already quoted as much of it as the rights layer allows. The tag, its field and its confidence stand; the sentence is at the publisher.
concepts[10]
Statistics — cross-field join keys
field-invariant statistical terms, used in their statistical sense (gated on a number / symbol / test). A p-value or a standard deviation means the SAME thing in physics, biology, psychology and sociology — so these are the strongest cross-field join keys. Grounded verbatim.
mean
Quotation withheld — this paper is not ours to reproduce, and the page has already quoted as much of it as the rights layer allows. The tag, its field and its confidence stand; the sentence is at the publisher.
content_tags.statistics[0]

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.

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