Coral Fossils May Provide Answers to Earth’s Past Climate

Coral fossils may provide answers to Earth’s past climate

T. Chen, L. F. Robinson, A. Burke - September 24, 2015 - Science Daily

This article was conducted in the United Kingdom, where researchers from the University of Bristol discovered how to measure radiocarbon in corals in such a way that they can determine past levels of carbon dioxide in earth’s atmosphere from thousands of years ago. Around 11,000-18,000 years ago, Earth was going through its most recent period of deglaciation, in which glaciers recede and temperatures typically warm. The article details that this period of deglaciation saw a carbon dioxide concentration increase by about eighty parts per million (ppm) and an approximate 120 meter rise in sea levels. Fossilized corals are advantageous in the way that they can be precisely and accurately dated by using uranium-series dating. This gives the fossils and age scale which can then be directly compared to ice cores from the same time period. This allows scientists and researchers to observe how oceans and their ecosystems behave during rapid shifts in climate. The areas of science that are involved are primarily Climatology and Geology. This is very important because this information may provide answers as to how our marine ecosystem and oceans may behave or respond during our current climate crisis— where carbon dioxide levels are rising rapidly— and helps us determine what possible things we can do to save them. The research was jointly conducted between the University of Bristol, University of St Andrews, and University of California Irvine , but took place in the Southern Ocean and Equatorial Atlantic. The research was published in the United Kingdom. I learned that information from the past is actually very valuable to the future. We can look at past records to help predict what to expect, allowing us to better prepare. We can answer modern day questions, such as ones pertaining to climate change, with clues and data from the past.

The research was originally published in a paper in the journal Science.

Vocabulary Words

Deglaciation- the disappearance of ice and glaciers from a previous glaciated region

Radiometric dating- a method used to date items such as fossils or rocks by using the abundance of a naturally decaying radioactive isotope

Radiocarbon- a radioactive isotope of carbon used in radioactive dating

Journal Reference

T. Chen, L. F. Robinson, A. Burke, J. Southon, P. Spooner, P. J. Morris, H. C. Ng. Synchronous centennial abrupt events in the ocean and atmosphere during the last deglaciation. Science, 2015; 349 (6255): 1537 DOI: 10.1126/science.aac6159