Foraminifera Tell a Story of Climate Change
Offshore Drilling and Fossils Shed Light on the Future
Nov 7, 2009
It almost seems like science fiction, scientists working diligently on a huge offshore drilling rig, exacting from the ocean fossils and sediment samples that haven’t seen the light of day for millions upon millions of years. It’s even stranger to think that those fossils are singing such telling songs about the environment in which they lived.
But that’s exactly what those fossils are doing for modern scientists. Paleontologists, paleoclimatologists, modern climatologists, and geologists are digging up archaic samples of dirt and fossils from the ocean floor in order to discern cryptic hints of what may one day happen to modern climate.
Helpful Little Foraminifera
They’re tiny, about the size of a single grain of sand. Made of calcium carbonate, the complex little shells of fossilized foraminifera allow researchers to glean a remarkable amount of information about the climates and ocean conditions of their time, even up to about 250 million years ago.
When drilling for core samples from the ocean floors, researchers find much help in the form of these tiny fossils. Certain types of foraminifera are specific to certain times, as would be expected, and when identified in the sediment samples brought up by drilling, scientists are able to hypothesize about the world whence they came.
By examining the fossils, said researchers can piece together data about prehistoric climate, ocean temperature, water levels, oxygen content, oceanic salinity, and a number of other aspects of the time.
Researching Prehistoric Climate Change
Professor Miriam Katz of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has dedicated nearly two decades to studying prehistoric climate change, and she believes that by trying to understand how the earth changed millions of years ago, scientists can predict what may happen in the future.
“There is a saying among scientists in my field that ‘the past is a window on the future,’ ” Katz said. “By reconstructing the climates of the past, particularly those where we see massive and rapid changes in the climate, we can provide a science-based means to explore or predict possible system responses to the current climate change.”
The process of research and discovery through offshore drilling is not an easy one. Spending two months at a time out at sea drilling for sediment samples, Katz and her researchers spend hours on end rummage through a number of core samples. In these samples are millions of layers of sediment, gases, and fossils, all trapped beneath the ocean floor. And because of their location acts as a hermetic seal, these samples prove to be extremely helpful.
Despite the painstaking hours of digging, Katz and other researchers are hopeful about their process. “By piecing together the species assemblages that are found in a given area during the given time period, we can reconstruct the sea level and ocean and climate conditions of that period based on our knowledge of each foraminiferal species,” she said.
Katz is hopeful that soon, her research may lead to a better understanding about Earth’s drastic climate changes: “Information from this period can provide us with important information on how rapid changes in temperature can significantly impact ice volume, sea level, and the evolution of life on Earth.”
For more detailed information about Miriam Katz and her current research with foraminifera, visit this feature story on Rensselaer Polytechnic's website.
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