Man-made pollution has now given rise to a new form of "mineral" called plastic rock.

Scientists, however, have created an official name for this contemporary anthropogenic phenomenon. They call these plastic rocks made from manmade pollution "plastiglomerates." This word is so new it isn't even in Wikipedia yet.

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Geologist Patricia Corcoran of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and Charles Moore, captain of the oceanographic research vessel Alguita, stumbled upon the plastiglomerates on a beach on the Big Island of Hawaii.

They named the plastic infused garbage rock, plastiglomerates.

These plastiglomerates most likely formed from melting plastic in fires lit by humans, the team said in a story published this month in GSA Today, the magazine of the Geological Society of America.

Corcoran said "... there is the potential for the formation of plastiglomerate" anywhere there is a heat source, such as forest fires or lava flows, and "... abundant plastic debris."

She noted that when plastic melts, it cements rock fragments, sand, and shell debris together. She said some of the plastic is still recognizable as toothbrushes, forks and just "... anything you can think of."

Once the plastic has fused to denser materials like rock and coral, it sinks to the sea floor.

Corcoran and her team scoured Kamilo Beach on the Big Island for more of the plastiglomerates and found them in all 21 sites they searched.

She expects there to be much more plastiglomerates on coastlines across the world. She said plastiglomerates are likely well distributed. It's just never been noticed before now.

The incredible amount of plastic produced since 1950 comes to 6 billion metric tons, enough to encase the entire planet in plastic wrap. Plastic's abundance and its persistence in the environment means there's a good chance it'll get into the fossil record, said paleontologist Jan Zalasiewicz of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who was not involved in the study.

"Plastics, including plastiglomerates, would be one of the key markers by which people could recognize the beginning of the Anthropocene."

Tagsnew, mineral, human, Pollution, plastigomerate, rock, Plastic, discovered