Of all the habitable parts of our planet, one ecosystem still remains largely unexplored and unknown to science: the igneous ocean crust.
This rocky realm of hard volcanic lava exists beneath ocean sediments that lie at the bottom of much of the world’s oceans.
While scientists have estimated that microbes living in deep ocean sediments may represent as much as one-third of Earth’s total biomass, the habitable portion of the rocky ocean crust may be 10 times as great. (more…)
*Samples of rock, sediment from beneath the sea-floor help explain quakes like Japan’s*
New samples of rock and sediment from the depths of the eastern Pacific Ocean may help explain the cause of large, destructive earthquakes similar to the Tohoku Earthquake that struck Japan in mid-March.
Nearly 1,500 meters (almost one mile) of sediment cores collected from the ocean floor off the coast of Costa Rica reveal detailed records of some two million years of tectonic activity along a seismic plate boundary. (more…)
*Evidence that early Antarctic Circumpolar Current development affected global climate*
Thirty-eight million years ago, tropical jungles thrived in what are now the cornfields of the American Midwest and furry marsupials wandered temperate forests in what is now the frozen Antarctic.
The temperature differences of that era, known as the late Eocene, between the equator and Antarctica were half what they are today. (more…)
