5th November 2020
The fossilised remains of ancient deep-sea corals may act as time machines providing new insights into the effect the ocean has on rising CO2 levels, according to research carried out by the Universities of St Andrews, Bristol and Nanjing.
Corals are thought to have evolved 500 million years ago and they have changed remarkably little in the passing time. Thus, they can be used as ‘time machines’ to reveal carbon dioxide evolution and to see changes in ocean circulation that happened thousands of years ago. The research has shown that the ocean around Antractica can suddenly switch its circulation to deliver burps of CO2 to the atmosphere.
