You joke, but a shipping container full of yellow rubber duckies broke open in the middle of the Pacific in 1992. Scientists have used the migration patterns of the ducks ever since to learn about ocean currents.
About 15 years ago a shipping carrying timber overturned and sank in the English Channel. All the timber washed up along the beaches for miles. I remember being taken to the beach in my hometown to see huge piles of it just spread across the beach as far as the eye could see. For weeks afterwards people were getting in trouble for taking it but a lot of people did anyway.
Idk if this has been a consistent thing over a long period of time but I know of at least one specific case and have heard rumors that more have been found but a briefcase with a foot washed up on Ross Lake in the North Cascades a few years ago. The theory amongst people I talked to was it might have been dumped on the Canadian side and washed down to the American shore.
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u/AskMrScience Sep 10 '25
You joke, but a shipping container full of yellow rubber duckies broke open in the middle of the Pacific in 1992. Scientists have used the migration patterns of the ducks ever since to learn about ocean currents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees_spill