An ancient bout of global warming 56 million years ago that acidified oceans and wiped-out marine life had a milder effect in the Gulf of Mexico, where life was sheltered by the basin’s unique geology – according to research by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).
An ancient bout of global warming 56 million years ago that acidified oceans and wiped-out marine life had a milder effect in the Gulf of Mexico, where life was sheltered by the basin’s unique geology – according to research by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).
Published in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, the findings not only shed light on an ancient mass extinction, but could also help scientists determine how current climate change will affect marine life and aid in efforts to find deposits of oil and gas.
And although the Gulf of Mexico is very different today, UTIG geochemist Bob Cunningham, who led the research, said that valuable lessons can be drawn about climate change today from how the Gulf was impacted in the past.
“This event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM is very important to understand because it’s pointing towards a very powerful, albeit brief, injection of carbon into the atmosphere that’s akin to what’s happening now,” he said.
Read more at University of Texas at Austin
Image: The Mississippi River flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. According to researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, river sediments and ocean currents helped simple sea life in the Gulf survive a deep-ocean mass extinction 56 million years ago. (Credit: U.S. Geological Survey)
