Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who specialises in tracking flotsam, says the Tjipetir blocks may be washing up on beaches for centuries. 'Based on the findings so far, they are clearly being fed into the hemispheric ocean circulation. It only takes 25 years for flotsam to go around the world, and they’ve probably been around long enough to go around the world three times.'From this story on gutta percha blocks.
From the comments section: "I looked into gutta-percha, it was used for many things, pistol grips and something crazy, root canals, but they found later it contained mercury, and other heavy metals. Bad stuff. The Gutta-percha is then cemented into the roots with a sealer that usually contains zinc oxide and eugenol. The goal of the filling procedure is to hermetically seal off the tooth against bacteria. The substance that was first introduced by Bowman in 1867."
-- Just one tangent from the Lost at Sea Facebook group.
Another recent tangent includes lignum vitae.
