Tag Archives: oceans

Experts Suggest Earth’s Prehistoric Oceans Might Not Have Been Blue

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Our planet has hosted oceans for approximately 3.8 billion years, but their current blue appearance is relatively recent. Research indicates that it hasn’t always been this way.

In the ocean’s depths today, the water appears blue because it absorbs longer wavelengths of sunlight, particularly those at the red end of the spectrum.

This absorption allows shorter, bluer wavelengths to penetrate further and scatter back into our eyes. Billions of years ago, various colors may have masked the blue waters.

During that era, the earliest life forms emerged in the oceans, particularly unicellular cyanobacteria. These organisms were crucial in shaping our planet’s habitability by capturing sunlight energy through photosynthesis, resulting in Earth’s first oxygen availability.

Researchers in Japan have recently developed a computer model demonstrating that the initial oxygen released by cyanobacteria reacted with dissolved iron in the seawater, leading to the formation of oxidized iron that turned the ocean’s surface green.

Moreover, early cyanobacteria likely adapted to thrive in the greenish water.

In their study, scientists engineered cyanobacteria that possess a specific type of photosynthetic pigment responsive to green light, known as phycoerythrobilin.

Japanese researchers created a model showing how early cyanobacteria’s oxygen interacted with dissolved iron, resulting in a green ocean surface. – Image credit: Getty Images

In contrast, most current plants utilize red and blue light through chlorophyll pigments.

In laboratory settings, these modified cyanobacteria were cultivated in tanks filled with green water, revealing a phenomenon that also occurs naturally.

The waters surrounding Iwo Jima in Japan are naturally high in iron oxide, imparting a unique green hue. The cyanobacteria prevalent along its coastlines possess pigments that make use of elevated green light levels.

This study suggests that exobiologists searching for extraterrestrial life should not only consider blue liquid water but also various shades of green that may hint at primitive life forms.

This article addresses the inquiry (by Philip Burke of Somerset): “Has the sea always been blue?”

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Without Whale Urine, Our Oceans Could Face Collapse: Here’s Why

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What portion of the ocean is made up of whale urine? Contrary to popular belief, the salinity of the ocean is not due to whale pee. A single fin whale can produce up to 250 gallons of urine in just one day.

While the precise amount of urine contributed by cetaceans to the ocean remains unclear, marine biologists have recently highlighted the crucial role whale urine plays in sustaining a healthy marine ecosystem by redistributing significant amounts of nutrients.

This process is largely driven by their migration patterns. Baleen whales (which are filter feeders) typically undertake extensive migrations between warm and cold regions.

For instance, female humpback whales feed in the Gulf of Alaska and then travel thousands of miles to the Hawaiian Islands to give birth.

This is particularly important for newborn calves, as they require a warm and comfortable environment to thrive, supported by a thick layer of insulating blubber. Conversely, the most nutritious feeding grounds for whales are found in the cold, krill-laden waters of polar regions.

Whales can produce hundreds of gallons of urine daily – Image credit: Getty

When whales head to their breeding areas, they typically cease feeding and rely on stored fat for energy. Consequently, the nutrients they consumed in high-latitude regions are released as urine and feces.

This movement of nutrients is likened to a great whale conveyor belt.

Particularly noteworthy is the significance of urine on this conveyor belt; a 2025 study revealed that gray, humpback, and right whales collectively transport nearly 4,000 tons of nitrogen annually.

In regions around the Hawaiian Islands, migrating whales can effectively double the nutrient influx into shallow waters.

This nutrient flow is critical as it stimulates the growth of phytoplankton, injecting energy into the marine food web.

The impact of this process was even greater prior to commercial whaling, when the nutrient transport via the Great Whale Conveyor Belt was likely three times more than it is today.

This article addresses the inquiry (made by Lou Grant in Birmingham): “What portion of the ocean consists of whale pee?”

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How Intricate Plants Have Transformed the Oceans

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Over 350 million years ago, the initial forest began to emerge on Earth, transforming its planetary environment. Geologists refer to this time as the Late Paleozoic period. Recent studies have proposed that the development of land plants initiated a series of events that reconstructed atmospheric and marine oxygen levels, as well as marine ecosystems.

Multiple oxygenation events have been recorded throughout Earth’s history. A significant event, marked by the presence of photosynthetic aquatic bacteria known as Cyanobacteria, occurred around 2.4 billion years ago, releasing a substantial amount of oxygen into the atmosphere. Further neoproterozoic oxygenation events between 85 and 540 million years ago exhibited increases in atmospheric oxygen, creating conditions favorable for animals and multicellular life. Researchers suggest that oxygen levels remained low until land plants proliferated in the Devonian period, leading to the Paleozoic oxygenation events.

While scientists generally concur that the explosion of complex plant life elevated atmospheric oxygen through photosynthesis, the precise timing and causes of Paleozoic oxygenation events remain unclear. Biogeochemists who modeled this event produced inconsistent timing estimates due to limited data constraints. Without a defined timeline, it is challenging for researchers to determine the nature of these events.

To tackle this issue, researchers from Australia and Canada analyzed various coral reefs that formed at the edge of the seas during the Devonian period. They studied chemical records of oxidation and reduction reactions in Carbonate rocks, which preserve the chemical signatures of their marine environments upon formation. The focus was on chemical properties that can indicate ocean oxygen concentrations, specifically the oxidation and redox conditions, by examining various carbonate rocks from shallow and deep waters to assess oxygen alterations at approximately 200 meters deep (or 650 feet).

The research team developed a novel method for analyzing past marine redox conditions by measuring the presence of elements like cerium (CE) in carbonate rocks. This choice was made because cerium’s behavior in seawater varies with oxygen levels. Coral reef organisms construct carbonate rocks from carbonates dissolved in seawater. In oxygen-rich conditions, minerals such as magnesium oxide and oxides absorb cerium, lowering its concentration in seawater, leading to a negative cerium anomaly in associated carbonates. Conversely, when seawater lacks oxygen, these oxides fail to form, allowing CE to remain in the seawater and become incorporated into the carbonate. By analyzing cerium anomalies in carbonates, the researchers could estimate shallow marine oxygen level changes over time.

The researchers sampled coral reefs from the Cambrian period (541 to 485 million years ago), the period from 419 to 359 million years ago, and the Mississippi period (359 to 323 million years ago) across Australia, Canada, and Ireland. They measured the CE abundance in these rocks using techniques known as mass spectroscopy. Following this, CE anomalies were calculated for each sample.

Findings indicated that CE anomalies generally decreased from Cambrian to Mississippi samples, signifying an increase in shallow marine oxygen levels. The study also revealed that each period exhibited distinct CE profiles. The earliest carbonate samples from the Cambrian to Devonian periods displayed weak CE anomalies and low marine oxygen levels, whereas samples from the Upper Devonian to Mississippi revealed notable CE anomalies and higher oxygen levels. Within the Mississippi samples, variability in oxygen levels was highlighted, with differing CE anomalies reported.

The team suggested that the various CE anomalies from the late Mississippi period indicated unstable shallow water conditions. Their chemical analyses proposed that earlier oxygenation events were not permanent, resulting in climate fluctuations and low biogeochemical conditions deeper in the ocean. Consequently, when oxygen-depleted water surged to shallower regions, it led to mass extinctions by creating inhospitable conditions for the dominant fauna of the time. They speculated that extinctions could have resulted from increased nutrient runoff due to the expansion of deep-rooted land forests.

In conclusion, the researchers indicated that the evolution of land plants would lead to a reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide and an increase in oxygen levels. This rise in marine oxygen would create a livable environment for oxygen-dependent species, including fish, setting the stage for complex evolutionary advancements and a diverse array of modern marine life.


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Source: sciworthy.com

Microplastics Could Impair the Ocean’s Carbon Capture Capacity

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Free divers surrounded by plastic pollution

Sebnem Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Microplastics are not merely present on the ocean’s surface. A comprehensive study on small particles has shown their widespread presence throughout the water column, potentially impacting the ocean’s capacity to sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

“There are countless entities like this all across the ocean’s interior,” states Tracy Mincer from Florida Atlantic University.

Mincer and his team analyzed microplastic data collected over the last decade from nearly 2,000 global locations. While many assessments concentrate on shallow ocean surfaces, their dataset incorporated samples from various depths, including some of the ocean’s deepest regions.

The researchers found microplastics documented precisely where research efforts were focused. This includes the Mariana Trench, where more than 13,000 microplastic particles were recorded, nearly 7 kilometers per cubic meter.

They were taken aback by the uniform distribution of the smallest particles throughout the water column. “While we anticipated finding plastics at both the ocean’s surface and its depths, they were unexpectedly widespread,” remarked Aron Stubbins from Northeastern University, Massachusetts.

Additionally, these plastic polymers contribute significantly to the carbon particles present in the water. At a depth of 2,000 meters, an area less biologically active than the surface, they account for 5% of the carbon content.

The ecological ramifications of these findings are not yet fully understood. One major concern is that buoyant plastics consumed by plankton may decrease the amount of carbon that is effectively transported to deeper layers through fecal pellets and carcasses. This could impede the ocean’s biological carbon pumps, says Stubbins. However, he emphasizes that quantifying the impact of this phenomenon remains a challenge. “We are uncovering a variety of plastics throughout the ocean,” he notes.

“We can no longer afford to overlook the insights of chemists and biologists in understanding how vast ocean systems operate,” stated Douglas McCauley from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He believes this research will clarify the discrepancies between estimates of millions of tons of plastic entering the oceans and the actually measured quantities. “Sadly, it’s not vanishing. Instead, it has dispersed throughout the water as microplastics,” he adds.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

A Giant Squid Captured on Video for the First Time Swimming Almost 2,000 Feet Below the Ocean’s Surface

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The giant squid, the world’s heaviest invertebrate, was captured in a video of itself swimming in the deep sea for the first time since it was identified a century ago.

The video was recorded on March 9th The Schmidt Ocean Institute said in a news release by an international team of scientists and crew on an expedition near the Southern Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic.

Scientifically named Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni, the squid was a long-time boy nearly a foot long, the release said. It was 1,968 feet deep when scientists and crew members of the Institute’s Forcole research vessel filmed the video on a remotely operated vehicle called Subastein.

The remotely operated vehicle Subastaian will be retrieved on the research vessel Forcol.
Alex Ingle/Schmidt Ocean Institute

“It’s exciting to see first in situ”We’ve been working hard to get the better of our customers,” said Kat Bolstad of Auckland Institute of Technology.

Bolstad was one of the scientific experts who helped verify the video.

“For 100 years, we mostly encountered them as harvested teeth predators, as prey remains mainly in the stomachs of whales and seabirds,” she said.

The squid was officially identified and named in 1925, but up until now, no one could have seen it lively on camera.

The squid is estimated to grow up to 23 feet long and weigh as much as 1,100 pounds, the institute said. Little is known about the life cycle, but as adults, they lose their transparent body.

A giant squid should not be confused with a giant squid. Natural History Museums in London. Both are giant cephalopods but belong to various families of squid. Giant squids have much longer tentacles, while giant squids have much larger bodies with shorter tentacles.

Bolstad and Aaron Evans, independent experts in the glass squid who helped validate the video, said the giant squid has distinctive properties, including a hook in the middle of its eight arms.

So far, ROV Subastein from the Institute has filmed the first confirmed video of at least four squid species in the wild, including last year’s Promachoteuthis and Ram’s Horn Squid in 2020.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

The earth’s biggest city is sinking beneath the ocean’s surface. What are the implications of this?

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Flooding is a common occurrence in the cities of Navotas and Malabon, located in densely populated areas north of Metro Manila in the Philippines.

These cities have adapted to the constant threat of floods. For example, the iconic jeepney vehicles are now made of stainless steel to prevent corrosion from seawater. Additionally, roads have been continuously elevated, reaching heights higher than people’s doors in some areas.

“They keep raising the roads higher and higher, and it’s a challenge to sustain this,” says Dr. Mahal Ragmay, Executive Director of the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute.

The struggle to combat floods in these cities is not just due to rising sea levels, but also to the lowering of the ground level. A study led by Lagmay and his team revealed that parts of Metro Manila sank by 10.6 centimeters (4.2 inches) per year between 2014 and 2020, significantly higher than the global average sea level rise.

This rapid decline has been a growing concern, especially in certain coastal areas around Manila Bay where floods have left half of the houses submerged, forcing rice farmers to turn to fishing for their livelihood.

Similar subsidence issues are observed in various highly urbanized regions worldwide, as highlighted by land subsidence expert Dr. Matt Way, who studies urban subsidence on a global scale.

The Impact of Land Subsidence

Subsidence measurements are now conducted using advanced technologies like satellite data, allowing researchers to make more accurate estimates of ground movement. With tools like GNSS and InSAR, scientists can track ground movement in 3D at specific points, providing detailed insights into subsidence patterns.

By analyzing subsidence data from various cities globally, researchers have found that many urban areas are experiencing significant sinking rates, posing a threat to millions of people.

Causes of Subsidence

Tighter regulations on groundwater extraction have slowed Jakarta’s sinking rate, but flooding still occurs – Credit: BAY ISMOYO

Subsidence in cities like New York and Manila has various causes, including post-glacial rebound and human activities like excessive groundwater pumping. While natural phenomena like seismic faults contribute to ground movements, human interventions play a significant role in accelerating subsidence rates.

Addressing subsidence requires a multi-faceted approach, from regulating groundwater extraction to monitoring and mitigating the impact of sinking urban areas.

Mitigating Urban Subsidence

Cities like Jakarta, Tokyo, and Houston have made strides in slowing subsidence rates by implementing stricter water regulations and alternative water supply solutions. In Manila, efforts to ban deep well drilling and reduce reliance on groundwater are underway to address subsidence issues.

While some areas may face relocation due to flooding and sinking, careful management of groundwater resources and proactive monitoring can help cities bounce back from subsidence challenges.

About our experts

Dr. Matt Way is an expert in oceanography and studies natural disasters and crustal geodesy at the University of Rhode Island.

Dr. Mahal Lagmay is the Executive Director of the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute, focusing on projects related to flooding and groundwater management in the Philippines.

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Research: Collaboration between oceans and continents led to Mesozoic marine extinctions

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in paper Published in the journal Nature ChemistryScientists have proposed a new explanation for a series of severe environmental crises known as marine anoxia, which occurred between 185 and 85 million years ago (during the Mesozoic era) when the amount of dissolved oxygen in the oceans became extremely low.

Oceanic anoxia was a geologically abrupt phase of extreme oxygen depletion in the oceans that disrupted marine ecosystems and led to evolutionary shifts. These events, which usually lasted about 1.5 million years, occurred frequently during the Mesozoic Era, between about 183 and 85 million years ago. One hypothesis suggests that anoxia resulted from increased chemical weathering of the Earth's surface on a greenhouse world with high volcanic carbon emissions. Gernon othersA combination of plate reconstructions, tectonic geochemical analyses and global biogeochemical modelling tested this hypothesis. Image courtesy of the University of Southampton.

“Ocean anoxia is like hitting the reset button on the Earth's ecosystems,” said Prof Tom Gernon, from the University of Southampton.

“The challenge was to understand what geological forces pushed the button.”

The researchers investigated the influence of plate tectonic forces on ocean chemistry during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, collectively known as the Mesozoic Era.

“This period in Earth's history is also known as the Age of the Dinosaurs and is well exposed along the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast on the south coast of England, Whitby in Yorkshire and Eastbourne in East Sussex,” Prof Gernon said.

Scientists have combined statistical analysis and advanced computer modelling to investigate how the ocean's chemical cycle may have responded to the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, the giant landmass once home to dinosaurs.

“During the Mesozoic Era, the continents broke apart and intense volcanic activity occurred around the world,” Prof Gernon said.

“As the plates shifted and new ocean floor was formed, phosphorus, a nutrient essential to life, was released in large quantities into the ocean from weathered volcanic rocks.”

“Importantly, we found evidence of multiple instances of chemical weathering on both the ocean floor and the continents, alternating between destroying the oceans — like a geological tag team.”

The authors find that the timing of these weathering waves coincides with most of the marine anoxic events in the rock record.

They argue that phosphorus that entered the ocean through weathering acted as a natural fertilizer, promoting the growth of marine life.

However, this fertilization phenomenon came at a great cost to marine ecosystems.

“Increased biological activity caused huge amounts of organic matter to sink to the seafloor, consuming huge amounts of oxygen,” said Prof Benjamin Mills, from the University of Leeds.

“This process ultimately left large swaths of the ocean anoxic, or 'dead zones' where oxygen was depleted and most marine life died.”

“The anoxic conditions typically lasted for one to two million years and had profound effects on marine ecosystems, the effects of which are still felt today.”

“The organic-rich rocks that accumulated during these events are the source of the world's largest commercial oil and gas reserves to date.”

The findings explain the causes of extreme biological chaos during the Mesozoic Era and highlight the devastating effects of nutrient overload on marine environments today.

“Studying geological events provides valuable insights that help us understand how Earth will respond to future climatic and environmental stresses,” Professor Gernon said.

Overall, the results reveal stronger-than-expected connections between Earth's solid interior and its surface environment and biosphere, especially during periods of tectonic and climatic upheaval.

“It is remarkable how a series of events occurring inside the Earth can have such profound, often devastating, effects on the surface,” Prof Gernon said.

“Continental breakup could have profound effects on evolutionary processes.”

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TM Gernon othersSolid Earth forcing of Mesozoic oceanic anoxia. National GeographyPublished online August 29, 2024, doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01496-0

This article has been adapted from an original release from the University of Southampton.

Source: www.sci.news

The impending catastrophe: Climate change’s impact on our oceans

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Around this time last year, Dean Grubbs and his colleagues were celebrating a conservation success story.The star of the show was the smalltooth sawfish, a large ray with a saw-like snout lined with tiny teeth. Victim of coastal development and bycatch, in 2003 it became the first saltwater fish to receive federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. By 2023, Florida's population will be the last sawfish in the US, and it's on the rise. “We were excited. We were seeing the population start to bounce back,” says Grubbs, a marine ecologist at Florida State University.

Then disaster struck. In January, a sawfish was found dead, thrashing about in shallow waters, spinning like crazy. This was after months of the smaller fish exhibiting similar behavior. Suddenly, Grubbs and his team were spending their days pulling dead sawfish from the water. After months of research and testing, the culprit finally emerged: ocean heat. A record-breaking heatwave brought “hot tub” water temperatures to Florida's coast in 2023, setting off a chain reaction that appears to have devastated the vulnerable sawfish population.

This is just one cautionary tale: something is wrong with the world's oceans. From orange algae blooms in the North Sea to outbreaks of gelatinous Bombay duckfish off the coast of China to the disappearance of Antarctic “bottom waters,” evidence is mounting that extreme temperatures are wreaking havoc on our oceans. After years of acting as silent sinks for excess human-made heat, the oceans are beginning to creak under the pressure. And we're finally starting to realize just how worried we should be.

About 90 percent of the excess is…

Source: www.newscientist.com

Potential Ocean’s Worth of Water Likely Hidden Beneath Mars’ Surface, Study Finds

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Mars A recent study indicates that the Earth may be hiding a global ocean beneath its surface, with cracks in rocks potentially holding enough water to form it.

The report, released on Monday, highlights NASA’s Mars rover InSight. To date, more than 1,300 earthquakes have been detected on Mars. This study was closed two years ago.

Scientists believe that the water lies about seven to 12 miles (11.5 to 20 kilometers) deep in Mars’ crust, possibly originating from the planet’s ancient surface water sources such as rivers, lakes, and oceans billions of years ago, according to Vashan Wright, the lead scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Despite the presence of water inside Mars, Wright noted that it does not necessarily mean that life exists there.

“However, our findings suggest the possibility of habitable environments,” he mentioned in an email.

The research team combined computer simulations with InSight data, including earthquake speeds, to suggest that groundwater is the most likely explanation. These results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

Wright remarked that if InSight’s observations near the equator of Mars at Elysium Planitia are representative of the entire planet, there could be enough groundwater to fill a terrestrial ocean approximately a mile (1 to 2 kilometers) deep.

Tools like drills will be required to verify the presence of water and search for signs of microbial life.

Despite the InSight lander no longer being in operation, scientists are still analyzing the data collected between 2018 and 2022 to gain more insights into Mars’ interior.

Over 3 billion years ago, Mars was mostly covered in water, but due to the thinning of its atmosphere, it lost its surface water, becoming the dry and dusty world we see today. It is believed by scientists that the ancient water either escaped into space or remains hidden underground.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Titan, Saturn’s moon, boasts both freshwater rivers and saltwater oceans

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Titan’s north polar region, imaged using Cassini’s radar signature, shows blue hydrocarbon oceans.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / Italian Space Agency / USGS

The most detailed look yet at Saturn’s moon Titan’s strange lakes has revealed a diverse marine landscape similar to Earth’s, with a mix of freshwater rivers and saltwater oceans.

Unlike Earth’s watery oceans, Titan’s lakes are composed of methane and ethane, which are liquid at the planet’s average surface temperature, about −179 °C (−290 °F).

Radar measurements from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, suggested differences in the lakes’ properties, including their composition and surface waves, but the signals didn’t contain enough information to distinguish between them.

now, Valerio Poggiali Poggiali and his colleagues at Cornell University in New York used a different radar technique to map the composition and surface of Titan’s oceans, revealing that the amount of ethane increases as you move south across the planet from the north pole. “The further north you go, the cleaner and purer the oceans become. They’re dominated by methane,” Poggiali says.

Previous radar measurements were made using signals sent and received at the same location on the Cassini spacecraft, which meant the reflected radio waves were polarized in one direction, or twisted.

The new study analyzed signals from Cassini’s radar that were reflected off the lake’s surface and picked up by NASA’s Deep Space Network, a radio antenna on Earth. The shallow angle of the reflected signal meant it contained two different polarized waves, giving Poggiali and his colleagues more information about the lake’s properties.

They found that many of the rivers and estuaries that feed the lake have rough surfaces caused by wind-driven waves, which could be a sign of active tides and currents feeding into the lake, Poggiali said. “Surface activity is very important if we want to plan future missions like a Titan submarine, but also to better understand Titan’s environment in terms of wind and atmospheric properties.”

Poggiali and his colleagues also found that the methane content was higher before the river flowed into the lake, which could help trace the methane and ethane cycle on Titan, Poggiali says. Ingo Muller-Wodarg “On Earth, when rivers flow into large, salty oceans, we find that the water becomes less saline near where the river flows in,” say researchers from Imperial College London. “Something similar is happening here, but it’s not the salinity that’s the problem, it’s the relative proportions of methane and ethane.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

A dinosaur from the Pseudopterygota group that inhabited the Panthalassa Ocean’s coast

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US paleontologists have described a new genus and species of extinct crocodile relative based on a partially articulated skeleton found in the Middle Triassic Fossil Hill Formation of the Fabre Formation in Nevada, a pelagic region of the eastern Panthalasan Ocean rich in ammonites and giant ichthyosaurs.

Bengwigiwishingasucus Elemical Minis Pansarasan Sea coast. Image courtesy of Jorge Gonzalez.

Newly identified species Pseudobranchial reptiles It lived during the Middle Triassic period, between 247.2 million and 237 million years ago.

Named Bengwigiwishingasucus Elemical MinisThe animal probably reached a length of around 1.5-1.8 metres (5-6 feet).

It probably stayed fairly close to shore. Its limbs are well developed and well preserved, with no signs of aquatic life such as fins or changes in bone density.

“This intriguing new species provides evidence that pseudobranchs occupied coastal habitats worldwide during the Middle Triassic,” said Dr. Nate Smith, Gretchen Augustine Director and Curator of the Dinosaur Institute at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

“The area containing the Fabre Formation, which captured fossil life from the Triassic Eastern Panthalassa Ocean, is known for the fossils of marine creatures such as ammonites, as well as marine reptiles such as giant ichthyosaurs. Cymbospondylus youngholm — Newly written Bengwigiwishingasucus Elemical Minis It was a bit of a shock.”

“Our first reaction was, ‘What is this?'” said Dr Nicole Klein, a paleontologist at the University of Bonn.

“We expected to find something like a marine reptile. We couldn’t understand how a land animal could be so far out in the ocean amongst ichthyosaurs and ammonites.”

“It wasn’t until I actually saw the almost perfectly prepared specimen that I was convinced it was indeed a land animal.”

Although pseudopterygian archosaurs have been unearthed from coastal fossil beds in the Tethys Ocean, this is the first to be found in the Panthalassa Ocean and along the coasts of the Western Hemisphere, revealing that close relatives of these crocodiles were present in coastal environments worldwide during the Middle Triassic.

Interestingly, these coastal species do not all belong to the same evolutionary group, suggesting that Pseudobranchia (and Archosaurs more broadly) were uniquely adapted to life along the coast.

“Essentially, it seems like a very different group of archosaurs came together in the Middle Triassic and decided to dip their toes in the water,” Dr Smith said.

“What’s interesting is that many of these ‘independent experiments’ don’t seem to have led to a wider spread of semi-aquatic groups.”

Archosaurs appeared in the Triassic Period and split into two groups, with two representative species surviving: birds, which were descendants of dinosaurs, and pseudo-crocodile archosaurs such as crocodiles (alligators, crocodiles, and gharials). Bengwigiwishingasucus Elemical Minis.

Today’s crocodiles are similar enough to mistake them for other reptiles, but ancient species of crocodiles differed greatly in size and lifestyle.

Evolutionary relationships Bengwigiwishingasucus Elemical Minis and its relatives suggest that pseudobranchs gained great diversity very rapidly after the end-Permian mass extinction, but the extent of this remains to be elucidated in the fossil record.

“The recent and growing number of discoveries of Middle Triassic pseudobranchs suggests that there was underappreciated morphological and ecological diversity and experimentation taking place early in the group’s history,” Dr Smith said.

“Much of the public interest in the Triassic has been focused on the origin of the dinosaurs, but it was the pseudobranchs at the beginning of the Mesozoic that were actually doing interesting things.”

Discovery Bengwigiwishingasucus Elemical Minis It has been reported paper In the journal Biology Letters.

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Nathan D. Smith others2024. A new pseudobranch discovered in Nevada’s Fabre Formation indicates that archosaurs inhabited coastal regions around the world during the Middle Triassic. violet 20(7); Source: http://www.doi.gov/doi/2020240136 Source: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0136

This article is based on a press release from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Source: www.sci.news

Study shows wave activity causing erosion along the coastlines of Titan’s largest lakes and oceans

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Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is the only known planet other than Earth that still retains liquid water. Liquid hydrocarbons fed by rain from Titan’s thick atmosphere form rivers, lakes, and oceans, most of which are found in the polar regions. In a new study, a team of MIT geologists surveyed Titan’s coastline and found that the moon’s large lakes and oceans were likely formed by waves.

Artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Image by Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

The existence of waves on Titan has been a somewhat controversial topic ever since NASA’s Cassini spacecraft discovered liquid puddles on Titan’s surface.

“Some people who have looked for evidence of waves haven’t seen any waves at all and have said, ‘The ocean is as smooth as a mirror,'” said Dr. Rose Palermo, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Others have said they saw some roughness in the water but didn’t know if it was caused by waves.”

“Knowing whether there is wave activity in Titan’s oceans can provide scientists with information about the moon’s climate, including the strength of the winds that generate such waves.”

“Wave information could also help scientists predict how the shape of Titan’s ocean will change over time.”

“Rather than looking for direct signs of wave-like features in Titan images, we wanted to take a different approach and see if just looking at the shape of the coastline could tell us what it is that is eroding the coast.”

Titan’s oceans are thought to have formed when rising waters flooded a landscape crisscrossed by river valleys.

The researchers zeroed in on three scenarios for what happened next: no coastal erosion, wave-driven erosion, and uniform erosion caused by either dissolution, where liquids passively dissolve coastal material, or a mechanism where the coast gradually peels away under its own weight.

They simulated how different coastline shapes would change under each of the three scenarios.

To simulate wave erosion, the researchers took into account a variable called “fetch,” which describes the physical distance from one point on the shoreline to the other side of a lake or ocean.

“Wave erosion depends on the height and angle of the waves,” Dr Palermo said.

“We used the fetch to estimate wave height because the bigger the fetch, the further away the wind will blow and the bigger the waves will be.”

Cassini observed Titan’s surface with microwaves and found several grooves that are deep canyons filled with liquid hydrocarbons, including Vid Fulmina, a branching network of thin lines in the upper left quadrant of the image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASI.

To test how coastline shape would differ between the three scenarios, the scientists started with a simulated ocean area with a flooded river valley all around it.

For wave erosion, we calculated the fetch distance from every point along the coastline to every other point and converted that distance to wave height.

They then ran simulations to see how waves would erode the original shoreline over time.

They compared this to how the same coastline would change due to erosion caused by uniform erosion.

The authors repeated this comparative modelling for hundreds of different initial shoreline configurations.

They found that the shape of the termini varies greatly depending on the underlying mechanism.

Most notably, uniform erosion produced a bulging shoreline that was evenly distributed all around, even in flooded river valleys, whereas wave erosion smoothed out portions of the shoreline exposed primarily to long downstream distances, leaving the flooded valleys narrow and rough.

“Although the initial coastline was the same, we found that uniform erosion and wave erosion resulted in very different final shapes,” Dr Perron said.

“Although it looks like a flying spaghetti monster because of the flooded river valley, the endpoints created by the two types of erosion are very different.”

This image is a composite of images taken during two flybys of Titan in 2006. A large circular feature near the center of Titan’s disk may be the remnant of a very old impact basin. The mountain range southeast of the circular feature and the long, dark linear feature northwest of the old impact site may be the result of deformation of Titan’s crust caused by energy released when the impact occurred. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.

Dr. Perron and his colleagues verified their results by comparing their simulation results with actual lakes on Earth.

They found the same shape differences between Earth’s lakes known to have been eroded by waves and those affected by homogeneous erosion, such as dissolved limestone.

Their modelling revealed distinct and distinctive shapes depending on the mechanism by which the shoreline evolved.

So they wondered: Where does Titan’s coastline fit into these distinctive shapes?

In particular, they focused on four of Titan’s largest and best-mapped oceans: Kraken Mare, which is comparable in size to the Caspian Sea; Ligeia Mare, which is larger than Lake Superior; Punga Mare, which is longer than Lake Victoria; and Lake Ontario, which is about 20% the size of the land-based lake of the same name.

The researchers used Cassini’s radar images to map the coastlines of each of Titan’s oceans, and then applied their model to the coastlines of each ocean to see which erosion mechanisms best explain their shape.

They found that all four oceans fit closely to the wave-induced erosion model, meaning that waves created the closest coastlines to Titan’s four oceans.

“We found that when the shoreline is eroding, its shape is more consistent with wave-driven erosion than uniform erosion or no erosion,” Dr Perron said.

Scientists are trying to figure out how strong Titan’s winds would need to be to churn up waves strong enough to repeatedly scrape away the shoreline.

They also hope to learn from the shape of Titan’s coastline which direction the winds primarily blow from.

“Titan shows us that this case is completely pristine,” Dr. Palermo said.

“It may help us learn more fundamental things about how coasts erode without human influence, which in turn may help us better manage coastlines around the world in the future.”

of Investigation result Published in today’s journal Scientific advances.

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Rose V. Palermo others2024. Evidence of wave erosion on Titan’s coast. Scientific advances 10(25); Source: 10.1126/sciadv.adn4192

Source: www.sci.news

Can ‘iron snow’ potentially sustain life in Europa’s oceans?

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The only example of life in the universe is Earth, a rocky planet with over 70% water on its surface. As far as we know, all life on Earth relies on water to survive and thrive, so scientists refer to other planets where liquid water is known to exist as “habitable.”

But scientists also know that a puddle of water alone is not enough to sustain life. Life depends on a constant flow of electrons between molecules, which Electronic GradientTo create energy, electrons move away from areas of high electron density. Reducelow density areas, so-called Oxidize.

Scientists have found several planets and moons in our solar system that have liquid water. Researchers are particularly intrigued by Jupiter's moon Europa, because remote sensing has revealed that it has a salty liquid ocean about 100 kilometers (60 miles) deep on top of a crust of iron-rich rock, with a layer of ice about 10 kilometers (6 miles) thick on top of that.

Europa has no atmosphere to protect it from the sun's radiation, which allows chemical reactions to take place that consume electrons on its surface, creating an oxidizing environment. In contrast, its iron-rich crust creates a reducing environment beneath its oceans. This means that an electron gradient naturally forms along the path from Europa's oxidizing surface to its reduced ocean floor. Scientists want to know if life could harness this electron gradient to obtain enough energy to sustain itself and survive.

Researchers studying Europa From the data Cassini and Galileo The mission found that Europa's ocean temperatures range from 0 to -13 degrees Celsius, or 32 to 9 degrees Celsius. They found that the hottest temperatures are found closest to the ocean floor, where heat is generated by reactions between water and rock, similar to Earth's hydrothermal systems. They also found that some of the most abundant molecules near Europa's surface are all oxide molecules, such as carbonates and sulfates.

Based on these temperature constraints and the amount of energy provided by oxidizing molecules on Europa's surface, a team of researchers from the University of Akron and the University of Southern California calculated the amount of energy available for life in Europa's ocean and investigated whether three types of Earth microorganisms could live beneath Europa's ocean. The microorganisms they tested generate energy using carbonates, sulfates, or iron particles. They reasoned that because all three of these oxidizing molecules are found on Europa's icy surface, if delivered to the ocean floor, the organisms could combine with reducing molecules on the ocean floor to generate energy.

The researchers calculated that in Europa's environment, molten iron near the surface layer of ice would form solid particles when exposed to penetrating radiation from the sun, and slowly fall to the ocean floor — like snow falling from the sky on Earth, except instead of water ice particles, the ocean rains down in the form of rust-like, reddish iron particles.

The scientists calculated that iron oxide snow would provide a larger electron gradient than carbonates or sulfates, ultimately generating more energy for life. They estimated that iron snow could provide up to 2.5×1026 More than 100 microbial cells are found on Europa's ocean floor per year, which represents about 0.1% of the total number of microbial cells currently living in Earth's oceans.

However, the authors caution that only around 10% of the energy produced by organisms on Earth is used to generate cells — the remaining 90% is used to maintain metabolism, meaning that the number of cells that microbial life could actually generate from Europa's underwater iron pathways would be much lower than the authors estimate.

Nevertheless, the authors suggest that these cell count calculations could be used to design missions to search for life on Europa: When future satellites orbit Europa, researchers could estimate how much cell mass we might expect from microbes living in the iron passages on the Europa ocean floor.


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Source: sciworthy.com

The gravitational force of Mars could potentially disturb Earth’s oceans

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The planets are doing a gravitational dance around the sun

Shutterstock/Johan Swanepoel

Mars’ gravitational pull could be strong enough to shake up Earth’s oceans and shift sediment as part of a 2.4 million-year climate cycle, researchers claim.

It has long been recognized that wobbles in Earth’s orbit around the sun affect Earth’s climate, and these Milankovitch cycles operate at intervals measured in thousands of years. Now, Adriana Dutkiewicz and his colleagues at the University of Sydney say they have discovered a 2.4-million-year “great cycle” that is driven by Mars and has dramatically affected the flow of Earth’s oceans for at least 40 million years. It is believed that it has been given.

Evidence for this cycle comes from approximately 300 deep-sea drill cores, revealing unexpected fluctuations in marine sediment deposition. During periods of stable ocean currents, oceanographers expect sediment to be deposited in stable layers, but when abnormal currents or eddies occur, sediment can be deposited elsewhere.

The researchers say the gaps or hiatus in the sediment record coincide with the period when Mars’ gravity exerts its greatest force on Earth, exerting subtle effects on the stability of Earth’s orbit. This changes solar radiation levels and climate, manifesting as stronger currents and eddies in the ocean.

team members Dietmar MullerResearchers, also from the University of Sydney, acknowledged that the great distance between Earth and Mars makes it unlikely that there is any significant gravitational force at work. “But there is so much feedback that even the slightest change can be amplified,” he says. “Mars’ influence on Earth’s climate is similar to the butterfly effect.”

benjamin mills Researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK say the drill core provides further evidence of the existence of “megacycles” in global environmental change.

“Many of us have seen these multimillion-year cycles in various geological, geochemical, and biological records, such as during the famous Cambrian explosion of animal life,” he said. says. “This paper helps solidify these ideas as an important part of environmental change.”

but matthew england A professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney welcomed the study and said he believed it would improve our understanding of climate cycles on a geological scale, but said he was not convinced by the paper’s conclusions.

“I’m skeptical about the Mars connection, given that Mars’ gravitational pull on Earth is very weak, only about a millionth of the Sun’s gravitational pull,” he says. “Even Jupiter has a stronger gravitational field than Earth.”

The UK also points out that even if there is an impact from Mars, it will be negligible compared to human-induced climate change. “By comparison, greenhouse gas forcing is like a sledgehammer and has no effect on our current climate, where melting ice sheets are reducing ocean circulation.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

New NASA Satellite Launches to Study Warming Oceans and Atmosphere

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The newest weather satellite of NASA was launched into orbit on Thursday, providing unprecedented details of the world’s oceans and atmosphere.

SpaceX launched its $948 million Pace satellite before dawn, sending its Falcon rocket south across the Atlantic Ocean to achieve a rare polar orbit.

The satellite will spend at least three years studying the ocean and atmosphere 420 miles (676 kilometers) above the Earth. Two scientific instruments scan the Earth every day. The third instrument takes monthly measurements.

The PACE (Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, Marine Ecosystems) satellite will separate from a SpaceX rocket in orbit on Thursday.NASA (via AP)

“It will be an unprecedented view of our home planet,” said project scientist Jeremy Wardell.

The observations will help scientists better forecast hurricanes and other severe weather, better understand how the Earth is changing as temperatures rise, and better predict when harmful algae blooms will occur.

NASA already has more than 20 Earth observation satellites and instruments in orbit. But Pace's findings should provide better insight into how atmospheric aerosols, such as pollutants and volcanic ash, interact with marine life such as algae and plankton.

“The pace will give us another dimension” to what other satellites observe, said Karen St. Germain, NASA's director of Earth Sciences.

PACE (short for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem) is the most advanced mission ever launched to study marine biology.

NASA and SpaceX engineers launched NASA's PACE (Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, and Ocean Ecosystems) spacecraft into SpaceX's Falcon 9 spacecraft on January 30 at the AstroTech Space Operations Facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is encapsulated in the payload fairing. Denny Henry/NASA (via AP)

Current Earth observation satellites can see in seven or eight colors, Werdel said. Pace displays 200 colors, allowing scientists to identify types of algae in the ocean and particles in the air.

Scientists expect to start collecting data within a month or two.

NASA is working with India to develop another advanced Earth observation satellite scheduled to launch this year. The project, named Nisar, will use radar to measure the effects of rising temperatures on the surfaces of glaciers and other melting ice.

NASA's Pace program survived despite efforts by the Trump administration to cancel it.

“It's been a long and strange journey, as they say,” Werdel said before the launch.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Study suggests Mimas, one of Saturn’s moons, could be responsible for forming Earth’s oceans beneath its icy shell

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From a detailed analysis of Mimas’s orbital motion based on data from NASA’s Cassini mission, planetary researchers from the Sorbonne, the University of Nantes, Queen Mary University of London, Franche-Comte University, and Jinan University have discovered that the heavily cratered They showed that some ice shells hide recently formed ice shells. (less than 2-3 million years ago) global ocean 20-30 km deep.

The surface of Mimas, like the surfaces of other major Saturn moons that do not have atmospheres, is not pure ice but contains some black impurities. Relatively dark markings appear along the lower part of the walls of the 130km-wide Herschel Crater (the crater's central peak is about the same height as Mount Everest); the impact may have all but destroyed the Moon. there is). some small craters. Scientists interpret the darkening as evidence that the impurities have gradually become concentrated as icy material evaporates in areas where they are slowly sliding down the crater walls. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.

There is growing evidence that some moons may have oceans beneath their surfaces, but such watery worlds are difficult to detect.

Mimas — Saturn's innermost and smallest (radius = 198.2 km, or 123 miles) regular moon — is an unlikely candidate due to the different nature of its surface compared to other icy moons such as Enceladus .

This theory has been challenged by Sorbonne University researcher Valerie Rainey and others who are evaluating Cassini's observations of small satellites.

Previous research suggests two possibilities inside Mimas. It is either an elongated rocky core or a global ocean.

A new study reveals that the small moon's rotational motion and orbit change due to internal influences.

For the solid-state model to apply, the rock core must be elongated and approximately pancake-shaped, which is inconsistent with observations.

Rather, measurements of Mimas' position suggest that the evolution of its orbit is better explained as influenced by an internal ocean.

The researchers calculate that the ocean lies beneath an ice shell about 20 to 30 kilometers deep.

Their simulations suggest that it appeared between 25 and 2 million years ago.

Therefore, signs of such an underground ocean would not have had time to leave traces on the surface.

This result suggests that recent processes on Mimas may have been common during the early stages of the formation of other ice worlds.

“Mimas was a small moon with a cratered surface and no sign of an ocean hidden beneath,” said co-author Nick Cooper, a researcher at Queen Mary University of London. the doctor said.

“With this discovery, Mimas joins an exclusive club of moons with inland oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with a unique difference: its oceans are surprisingly young.”

of study Published in today's magazine Nature.

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V. Rainey other. 2024. A recently formed ocean within Saturn's moon Mimas. Nature 626, 280-282; doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06975-9

Source: www.sci.news

New Method Discovered by Astronomers for Detecting Water Oceans and Alien Life on Rocky Exoplanets

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Planets that are too close to their star (such as Venus) are too hot, and planets that are too far away (such as Mars) are too cold, but planets that are within the habitable zone have just the right temperature. Although great efforts have been made to identify planets in the theoretical habitable region of stars, until now there has been no way to know whether a planet really has liquid water. Now, astronomers from the University of Birmingham and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that if an exoplanet’s atmosphere has less carbon dioxide than its neighbors, it may have liquid water on its surface. It was shown that it was suggested.

Artist’s impression of the super-Earth planet Ross 508b. Image credit: Sci.News.

Astronomers have detected more than 5,200 extrasolar worlds so far. Modern telescopes allow us to directly measure the distance from a planet to a star and the time it takes to complete one revolution.

These measurements help scientists infer whether a planet is within its habitable zone.

However, there was no way to directly confirm whether a planet was truly habitable, i.e. whether there was liquid water on its surface.

Throughout our solar system, astronomers can detect the presence of liquid oceans by observing glints, flashes of sunlight reflecting off liquid surfaces.

These glows, or specular reflections, have been observed, for example, on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and helped identify the moon’s large lakes.

However, detecting similar glows on distant planets is not possible with current technology.

But astronomer Julien de Witt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, astronomer Amaury Tryaud of the University of Birmingham and colleagues believe there is another habitable landform close to home that could be detected far away. I noticed something.

“Looking at what was happening to terrestrial planets in our own star system gave us an idea,” Tryaud said.

Venus, Earth, and Mars share similarities in that all three are rocky and live in relatively temperate regions relative to the Sun.

Earth is the only planet of the three that currently has liquid water. Researchers then noted another clear difference. That means there is significantly less carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere.

“We think these planets formed in a similar way, and if we find a planet with less carbon than it does now, it must have gone somewhere else,” Tryaud said.

“The only process that can remove this much carbon from the atmosphere is a strong water cycle involving oceans of liquid water.”

In fact, Earth’s oceans have played a major and persistent role in absorbing carbon dioxide.

For hundreds of millions of years, the ocean has absorbed enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. This is about the same amount that remains in Venus’ atmosphere today.

This planetary effect has resulted in Earth’s atmosphere being significantly depleted in carbon dioxide compared to neighboring planets.

Dr. Frieder Klein, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said: “On Earth, much of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is sequestered in seawater and solid rock over geological timescales; It has helped regulate climate and habitability for billions of years.” .

Astronomers reasoned that if a similar decrease in carbon dioxide was detected on a distant planet compared to a nearby planet, this would be a reliable signal of a liquid ocean and life on its surface. did.

“After an extensive review of the literature in many fields, from biology to chemistry to carbon sequestration related to climate change, we found that if carbon depletion is indeed detected, it is likely that liquid water and its effects are “We think this is likely a strong indication that this is a sign of life.” Dr. de Witt said.

In the study, the researchers developed a strategy to detect habitable planets by looking for traces of depleted carbon dioxide.

Such searches are ideal for “pea” systems, like our solar system, in which multiple terrestrial planets, all about the same size, orbit relatively close to each other.

The first step, the scientists suggest, is to confirm that a planet has an atmosphere by simply looking for the presence of carbon dioxide, which is expected to dominate the atmospheres of most planets.

“Carbon dioxide is a very strong absorber of infrared light and can be easily detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets,” Dr. de Witt said.

“The carbon dioxide signal could reveal the presence of an exoplanet’s atmosphere.”

Once astronomers determine that multiple planets in a system have atmospheres, they move on to measuring their carbon dioxide content to see if one planet has significantly less than the others.

If so, this planet is likely habitable, which means there is a large amount of liquid water on its surface.

However, habitable conditions do not necessarily mean that the planet is inhabited. To confirm whether life actually exists, the authors suggest that astronomers look for another feature in the planet’s atmosphere: ozone.

On Earth, plants and some microorganisms contribute to absorbing carbon dioxide, although to a lesser extent than the oceans. Nevertheless, as part of this process, living organisms release oxygen, which reacts with solar photons and turns into ozone. Ozone is a much easier molecule to detect than oxygen itself.

If a planet’s atmosphere shows signs of both ozone and carbon dioxide depletion, the planet may be habitable and inhabited by humans.

“If you see ozone, there’s a pretty good chance it’s related to carbon dioxide being consumed by life forms,” ​​says Tryaud.

“And if it’s life, it’s glorious life. It won’t be just a few bacteria. It’ll be a planetary-scale biomass that can process and interact with large amounts of carbon.”

The researchers believe NASA/ESA/CSA’s James Webb Space Telescope can measure carbon dioxide, and possibly ozone, in nearby multiplanetary systems like TRAPPIST-1, a seven-planet system orbiting a bright star. I’m guessing it is. Light years from Earth.

“TRAPPIST-1 is one of the few systems that can use the Web to study Earth’s atmosphere,” said Dr. de Witt.

“We now have a roadmap to finding habitable planets. If we all work together, we may make paradigm-changing discoveries within the next few years.”

of study It was published in the magazine natural astronomy.

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AHMJ triode other. Atmospheric carbon depletion as a tracer of water oceans and biomass in temperate terrestrial exoplanets. Nat Astron, published online on December 28, 2023. doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-02157-9

Source: www.sci.news

Revealing the Ocean’s Secret Carbon Storage Capacity

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New research published in Nature It has been suggested that the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is 20% higher than previously thought, at 15 gigatonnes per year. This study focused on the role of plankton in carbon transport to the ocean floor. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Research has revealed that the ocean is storing 20% ​​more carbon dioxide than previously estimated, primarily due to plankton transporting carbon to the ocean floor. However, this new understanding will not have much of an impact on his current CO2 emissions crisis.

The ocean’s capacity to store atmospheric carbon dioxide is about 20% greater than estimates included in the latest IPCC report.[1] These are the research results published in the journal Nature Led by an international team including biologists from the CNRS, it took place on December 6, 2023.[2] Scientists investigated the role plankton plays in the natural transport of carbon from surface waters to the ocean floor.

Plankton absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into organic tissue as they grow. photosynthesis. When plankton dies, some of it turns into particles known as “marine snow.” Because these particles are denser than seawater, they sink to the ocean floor, where they store carbon and provide essential nutrients to a wide range of deep-sea organisms, from tiny bacteria to deep-sea fish.

Global distribution of organic carbon flux from the surface layer of the open ocean. Credit: © Wang et al., 2023, Nature.

By analyzing banks of data collected from around the world by ocean research vessels since the 1970s, a team of seven scientists was able to digitally map the flux of organic matter across the world’s oceans. The resulting new estimate of carbon storage capacity is 15 gigatonnes per year, an increase of about 20% compared to a previous study published by the IPCC in its 2021 report (11 gigatonnes per year).

This reassessment of the ocean’s storage capacity represents a significant advance in our understanding of carbon exchange between the atmosphere and ocean at the global level. The research team emphasizes that this absorption process takes place over tens of thousands of years and is therefore not sufficient to offset the exponential growth of CO.2 Despite emissions caused by industrial activity around the world since 1750, this study highlights the importance of marine ecosystems as a key player in the long-term control of Earth’s climate.

Note

  1. IPCC Climate Change 2021 Report, Fundamentals of the Physical Sciences, Chapter 5, Figure 5.12: Figure AR6 WG1 | Climate Change 2021: Fundamentals of the Physical Sciences (ipcc.ch)
  2. From Marine Environmental Science Research Institute (CNRS/UBO/IFREMER/IRD)

Reference: “Estimating biological carbon pumps based on decades of hydrographic data” Wei-Lei Wang, Weiwei Fu, Frédéric AC Le Moigne, Robert T. Letscher, Yi Liu, Jin-Ming Tang, François W. Primeau , December 6, 2023, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06772-4

Source: scitechdaily.com