New Study Reconstructs the Past Ocean ‘Paleome’
When Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine paleoecologist Marco Coolen was mining through vast amounts of genetic data from the Black Sea sediment record, he was amazed about the variety of past plankton species that left behind their genetic makeup (i.e., the plankton paleome). (more…)
Glaciers play a vital role in Earth’s climate system, and it’s critical to understand what contributes to their fluctuation.
Increased global temperatures are frequently viewed as the cause of glacial melt, but a new study of Patagonia’s Gualas Glacier highlights the role of precipitation in the glacier’s fluctuation. The study, conducted by Sébastien Bertrand of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and his colleagues, reconstructs a 5,400 year-record of the region’s glacial environment and climate, comparing past temperature and rainfall data with sediment records of glacier fluctuations and the historical observations of early Spanish explorers. (more…)
