29,000 rubber ducks lost at sea have revolutionized our knowledge of oceans!

The international shipping business keeps it's cargo issues on the down low. So, it is hard to know how many shipping accidents there actually are. The problem is, that we know it happens, and all too often.

There are stories of boxes of plastic bags for dry cleaning falling off ships and endangering the marine wildlife and other cargo simply sinking to the bottom of the ocean and sitting there to rot and hurt the marine wildlife from the bottom.
Cargo full of cigarettes have also fallen into the ocean, burst open, and the marine life ingesting the butts sometimes killing them.

In 1992, a cargo dump unexpectedly revolutionized our understanding of ocean science. Some of the 29,000 rubber ducks, frogs, turtles and beavers fell into the ocean on their way from China to the U.S. The rubber ducks washed up on shore all around the world.

They found that it took three years for the ocean waters to make a full circuit around the world. Some of the ducks were found in the Arctic Circle, Hawaii, Alaska, Newfoundland, and even Scotland. By finding the rubber ducks and the time frame it took for them to wash ashore in the different areas, scientists were able to figure out the circulatory rate of the ocean and other oceanic information.

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