Scientists study 'garbage patch' in Pacific Ocean

It is a problem of massive plastic proportions -- a giant floating debris field, composed mostly of bits and pieces of plastic, in the northwest Pacific Ocean, about a thousand miles off the coast of California. It's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and it covers a vast area of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of miles of open ocean. Now researchers are trying to learn more about the sea-bound trash zone and perhaps find answers to basic questions. A crew of scientists from the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography has embarked on a three-week mission aboard the research vessel New Horizon, heading for the debris field to study it...CNN