What can fossils teach scientists about the climate on ancient Earth? This is what a recent study published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated how coral fossils could be used to better understand past climates on Earth. This study has the potential to help scientists gain insights into ancient Earth climates and use them to predict future climates.
For the study, the researchers used a novel method called neutron computed tomography (NCT) to analyze four coral fossils for evidence of climate and dating. The novel aspect of NCT is its ability to create a 3D construct from a 2D image, offering more precise analysis of the fossils, specifically for identifying aragonite and calcite phases that preserve past climate and near-absolute dates. In the end, the researchers found that the four fossils ranged in ages from 1,650 to 600,000 years old, demonstrating the incredible power of NCT.
“This method opens the door to recovering climate information from coral samples once written off as too altered to be useful,” said Carra Williams, who is a PhD student at the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences and lead author of the study. “By seeing inside the fossils in 3D, we can distinguish the original coral mineral, aragonite, from its altered form, calcite. The aragonite retains the best signals of past ocean and climate conditions in coral that are available to us.”
While fossils have long been used to study ancient Earth conditions, this new NCT method could open the door for enabling more precise measurements and analysis, and specifically accurate dating. Through this, researchers can gain a more accurate picture of past Earth climates and what we can potentially predict for the future.
What new discoveries into ancient Earth climates will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Study lead author, Carra Williams. (Credit: The University of Sydney)
