May 25th, 2011

Comics: The Return of the Plastic Ducks

by Alex Hallatt

In 1992 a container containing 28,800 plastic bath ducks was lost at sea (this in itself is not strange – it is estimated that 10,000 containers a year fall off the ships carrying them!). Unlike other lost cargo (eg. luxury cars lost in the English channel), this provided oceanographers with a great opportunity – they have been using the ducks to study ocean currents ever since.

I first introduced the ducks to Arctic Circle in 2009, but with the release of a new book, it was time to revisit them.