An international team of scientists has moved beyond just ‘scratching the surface,’ to understand how microplastics move through and impact the global ocean. For the first time, scientists have mapped microplastic distribution from the surface to the deep sea at a global scale — revealing not only where plastics accumulate, but how they infiltrate critical ocean systems. Researchers synthesized depth-profile data from 1,885 stations collected between 2014 and 2024 to map microplastic distribution patterns by size and polymer type, while also evaluating potential transport mechanisms.