Microplastic concentrations in water and sediments from the Tampa Bay, Florida collected from 2016-06-08 to 2017-07-24 (NCEI Accession 0285700)

This study estimated the concentration of microplastics (i.e. plastics measuring less than 5mm; reported in unit of particles/L for water samples and particles/kg d.w for sediment samples) in water and sediments from the Tampa Bay, Florida collected from 2016-06-08 to 2017-07-24. Microplastics in sediments were collected using a Shipek grab sampler. Microplastic particles suspended in the water column were collected using two different sampling methods: discrete water samples and plankton tows. The discrete samples were collected using a Van Dorn sampler. The plankton tows used a 330 μm plankton net towed at ~2 knots (1 m/s) 1-2 meters below the sea surface for 3 min outside the research vessel's wake. This dataset contains the results from all 181 discrete water samples, 33 plankton tow samples, and 9 sediment samples, in a spreadsheet format.