Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. 24/7 Space News .




EARLY EARTH
Jurassic records warn of risk to marine life from global warming
by Staff Writers
Plymouth UK (SPX) Feb 22, 2013


This is an early Jurassic ammonite. Credit: Plymouth University.

Researchers at Plymouth University, UK, believe that findings from fieldwork along the North Yorkshire coast reveal strong parallels between the Early Jurassic era of 180 million years ago and current climate predictions over the next century.

Through geology and palaeontology, they've shown how higher temperatures and lower oxygen levels caused drastic changes to marine communities, and that while the Jurassic seas eventually recovered from the effects of global warming, the marine ecosystems that returned were noticeably different from before.

The results of the Natural Environment Research Council-funded project are revealed for the first time in this month's PLOS ONE scientific journal.

Professor Richard Twitchett, from the University's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and a member of its Marine Institute, said: "Our study of fossil marine ecosystems shows that if global warming is severe enough and lasts long enough it may cause the extinction of marine life, which irreversibly changes the composition of marine ecosystems."

Professor Twitchett, with Plymouth colleagues Dr Silvia Danise and Dr Marie-Emilie Clemence, undertook fieldwork between Whitby and Staithes, studying the different sedimentary rocks and the marine fossils they contained. This provided information about the environmental conditions on the sea floor at the time the rocks were laid down.

The researchers, working with Dr Crispin Little from the University of Leeds, were then able to correlate the ecological data with published data on changes in temperature, sea level and oxygen concentrations.

Dr Danise said: "Back in the laboratory, we broke down the samples and identified all of the fossils, recording their relative abundance much like a marine biologist would do when sampling a modern environment. Then we ran the ecological analyses to determine how the marine seafloor community changed through time."

The team found a 'dead zone' recorded in the rock, which showed virtually no signs of life and contained no fossils. This was followed by evidence of a return to life, but with new species recorded.

Professor Twitchett added: "The results show in unprecedented detail how the fossil Jurassic communities changed dramatically in response to a rise in sea level and temperature and a decline in oxygen levels.

"Patterns of change suffered by these Jurassic ecosystems closely mirror the changes that happen when modern marine communities are exposed to declining levels of oxygen. Similar ecological stages can be recognised in the fossil and modern communities despite differences in the species present and the scale of the studies."

The NERC project - 'The evolution of modern marine ecosystems: environmental controls on their structure and function' - runs until March 2015, and is one of four funded under their Coevolution of Life and the Planet research programme.

.


Related Links
University of Plymouth
Explore The Early Earth at TerraDaily.com






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








EARLY EARTH
Ancient insects shed light on biodiversity
Burnaby, Canada (SPX) Feb 14, 2013
Simon Fraser University evolutionary biologists Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes, and Brandon University biologist David Greenwood, have discovered that modern tropical mountains' diversity patterns extended up into Canada about 50 million years ago. Their findings confirm an influential theory about change in modern species diversity across mountains, and provide evidence that global bio ... read more


EARLY EARTH
Water On The Moon: It's Been There All Along

Building a lunar base with 3D printing

US, Europe team up for moon fly-by

Russia to Launch Lunar Mission in 2015

EARLY EARTH
NASA Rover Confirms First Drilled Mars Rock Sample

India plans mission to Mars in 2013

Rover finds gray rock beneath Red Planet's surface

Bleach could hamper Mars life search

EARLY EARTH
Supersonic skydiver's records confirmed

Kennedy Engineers Designing Plant Habitat For ISS

NASA plant study headed to space station

NASA Spinoff 2012 Features New Space Tech Bettering Your Life Today

EARLY EARTH
Welcome Aboard Shenzhou 10

Reshuffle for Tiangong

China to launch 20 spacecrafts in 2013

Mr Xi in Space

EARLY EARTH
NASA briefly loses contact with space station

Temporary Comm Loss Interrupts Crew's Day

Low-Gravity Flights Will Aid ISS Fluids and Combustion Experiments

Progress docks with ISS

EARLY EARTH
Countdown begins for Indo-French satellite launch

NASA Seeks University Participants for Summer Rocket Workshop

Another Sea Launch Failure

ILS Concludes Yamal 402 Proton Launch Investigation

EARLY EARTH
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Tiny Planet System

Kepler helps astronomers find tiny exo planet

Searching for a Pale Blue SPHERE in the Universe

Earth-like planets are right next door

EARLY EARTH
DARPA Seeks to Defuse the Threat of Ionizing Radiation

Engineers show feasibility of superfast materials

Sony bills PS4 console as gaming's future

Lessons from nature could lead to the creation of new materials




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement