This is scientific Americans 60 second science. I'm Karen Hopkins. This will just take a minute.

At some point we all had to memorize the names of Earth's oceans.

Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Arctic.

But in reality, all this water is connected.

So how do we know where one body begins and another ends?

Just follow the trash.

Because the location of seafaring garbage can be used to define the ocean's borders.

That's according to a study in the journal Chaos. Historically speaking, the planets waters have

been partitioned into discrete oceans for reasons that are geographical, historical, even cultural.

To approach the problem from a more anatomical perspective, researchers came up with a model of

how surface waters move, which is where the rubbish comes in. Flotillas of flotsam are formed by currents that gather the garbage in large floating patches.

But the currents also create barriers that minimize mixing between different ocean regions.

By modeling these currents,

researchers have redefined the borders of the ocean basins

based on how readily their waters mix. They find, for example, that a sliver of the

Indian Ocean is really part of the South Pacific. The work should help track

ocean debris or even the spread of spilled oil and it could change the way we see our seas.

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific Americans, 60 Second Science, I'm Karen Hopkins.