While the ubiquity and rising abundance of microplastic contamination is becoming increasingly well-known, there is very little empirical data for the scale of their historical inputs to the environment. For many pollutants, where long-term monitoring is absent, paleoecological approaches (the use of naturally-accumulating archives to assess temporal trends) have been widely applied to determine such historical patterns, but to date this has been undertaken only very rarely for microplastics, despite the enormous potential to identify the scale and extent of inputs as well as rates of change. In this paper, we briefly assess the long-term monitoring and paleoecological microplastic literature before considering the advantages and disadvantages of various natural archives (including lake and marine sediments, ice cores and peat archives) as a means to determine historical microplastic records, as well as the range of challenges facing those attempting to extract microplastics from them. We also outline some of the major considerations in chemical, physical and biological taphonomic processes for microplastics as these are critical to the correct interpretation of microplastic paleoecological records but are currently rarely considered. Finally, we assess the usefulness of microplastic paleoecological records as a stratigraphic tool, both as a means to provide potential chronological information, as well as a possible marker for the proposed Anthropocene Epoch.

中文翻译：

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微塑料污染的古生态学

虽然微塑料污染的普遍性和不断增加的数量越来越广为人知，但关于它们对环境的历史投入规模的经验数据却很少。对于许多缺乏长期监测的污染物，古生态学方法（使用自然积累的档案来评估时间趋势）已被广泛应用于确定此类历史模式，但迄今为止，这种方法很少用于微塑料，尽管在确定投入的规模和程度以及变化率方面具有巨大潜力。在本文中，我们在考虑各种自然档案（包括湖泊和海洋沉积物、冰芯和泥炭档案）作为确定历史微塑料记录的一种手段，以及试图从中提取微塑料的人面临的一系列挑战。我们还概述了微塑料化学、物理和生物埋藏过程中的一些主要考虑因素，因为这些对于正确解释微塑料古生态记录至关重要，但目前很少考虑。最后，我们评估了微塑料古生态记录作为地层工具的有用性，既可以作为提供潜在年代信息的手段，也可以作为拟议的人类世纪元的可能标记。我们还概述了微塑料的化学、物理和生物埋藏过程中的一些主要考虑因素，因为这些对于正确解释微塑料古生态记录至关重要，但目前很少考虑。最后，我们评估了微塑料古生态记录作为地层工具的有用性，既可以作为提供潜在年代信息的手段，也可以作为拟议的人类世纪元的可能标记。我们还概述了微塑料化学、物理和生物埋藏过程中的一些主要考虑因素，因为这些对于正确解释微塑料古生态记录至关重要，但目前很少考虑。最后，我们评估了微塑料古生态记录作为地层工具的有用性，既可以作为提供潜在年代信息的手段，也可以作为拟议的人类世纪元的可能标记。