Description

On August 6 at 7:00 PM at the Museum of Coastal Carolina, Richard Hilderman will present Ocean Gyres: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Ocean gyres consist of large circular ocean currents that rotate clockwise in the Northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern hemisphere. There are five major ocean gyres. Hilderman recalls that, in 1997, Charles Moore and his crew sailed through the seldom travelled North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Moore soon realized that his ship was skimming through a plastic soup which turned out to be the largest garbage dump on Earth, now called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. In his presentation, Hilderman will discuss how ocean gyres work. He will also address the human-created plastic garbage patches in the gyres and how they negatively affect marine wildlife up and down the food chain.

Richard Hilderman is a biochemist with over 50 peer-reviewed publications. Before his retirement from Clemson University in 2009, Hilderman was Director of the Clemson University Genomic Institute. He is now actively involved in the global warming/climate change debate.

The Museum of Coastal Carolina is located at 21 East Second Street in Ocean Isle Beach, NC. Admission is free for Museum members. Non-member all-day admission is $8 for adults (13-61), $7 for seniors (62+), $6 for children (3-12), and free for ages 2 and under. For more information, call 910-579-1016 or visit www.museumplanetarium.org.