Coral Reefs Are Decaying At An Alarming Rate

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The first chapter of the book discusses the way we can use fossil records to study the biological world. Fossils are one of the major lines of evidence we use to understand ourselves. Surprisingly, we are able to discover them with a high amount of precision and predictability. In particular, field paleontologists have it easier than it has ever been before due to the current information age. The physical hunt for important fossils, however, is much like it has always been. Three factors limiting the number of useful fossil sites include rock age, type (whether or not it can preserve fossils), and number of exposed rocks. So, it takes a bit of luck to reliably find fossils. Thankfully, rock

In order to find evidence of the transition from fish to land animals, the author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks. In 2004, they studied sedimentary rock on Ellesmere Island in Canada’s Arctic as they thought that the rocks there would be exposed and untouched by humans, which would be ideal for fossil excavations. They studied sedimentary rocks (limestone, sandstone, siltstone and shales) because these

Sea levels are at their fastest rate in 2,000 years Global flooding could triple by 2030 Two thirds of the Great Barrier Reef has been damaged as a result of climate change , and more greenhouse gasses are in our atmosphere than any time in human

A warming ocean has already killed large chunks of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. On April 4, 2017, writer Eduardo Porter for The New York Times published an article called, “To Curb Global Warming, Science Fiction May Become Fact,” intended for the reader of the New York Times. The editorial talks about how if we don’t take action as soon as possible, climate change could indeed become a new thing. Scientist all over the world are discovering many areas throughout the planet that are increasing in temperature, and animals’ homes are being destroyed. The writer is able to create a better understanding on the dangers of a warming planet, by saying the earth is increasing in temperature all over the world, not only affecting different animals,

The ocean is a very delicate ecosystem in which the slightest change of pH or chemical composition will result in devastating results. Between 25 and 40% of anthropogenic carbon emissions have entered the marine area since the industrial age (Sabine et

In Chapter 11 “Deciphering Earth’s History” of the book “Earth Science” by Tarbuck and Lutgens, it explains to the audience how scientists have come up with new ways to figure out the age of Earth and even mountains, rivers and fossils. Some ideas such as rock layers, fossils, and radioactivity are some of the ways scientists use to figure out the exact date the earth was created and even find out how old some parts of the world are. Finding out the exact times many mountains, rivers, fossils and humans actually existed can help us put them down on the Geologic Time Scale and also answer questions such as, “Did humans and Dinosaurs Ever

The article reports that University College London geochemist Dominic Papineau and his student Matthew Dodd described fossils similar to those found in the Apex Chert in an outcrop known to be anywhere from 3.77 billion to 4.28 billion years in age. This outcrop, located in Quebec, is referred to as the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt and is a remnant of Earth’s original ocean floor. In the article, Dodd describes the hematite fossils contained by the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt as “tubelike” and suggests that they were formed by a community of microbes that lived up to 4.28 billion years

The Great Barrier Reef is on the brink of dying, and humans are to blame. Corals are the center of marine ecosystems as they provide food and shelter for animals as well as a source of income for Australia, in terms of tourism and fishing. However, as said by NASA research scientist Liane Guild, “Coral reefs are considered ‘canaries of the oceans,’ acting as an early warning system for marine ecosystems” . If the corals die off then everything in the ocean will follow. Of course weather is unpredictable and is a big part of why coral bleaching has occurred, but humans have also had a negative impact on them. There are currently Catholic movements aimed at saving the reef, and Pope Francis mentions the gravity of this situation in his recent encyclical. That being said, if we as a human race were told about coral bleaching by governments and were educated about it in school then global warming and weather wouldn’t have affected it as much as it has.

Rather than assuming that physical laws always operated as they currently do, some people think that the earth operated differently in the past. More specifically, they think that there were frequent major catastrophes, and that those instances are what caused fossils and rocks to form in the way they did (McClure, 2009, p. 191). Since such catastrophes happened relatively fast, it has led some people to conclude that the earth is not as old as scientists think it is (McClure, 2009). Catastrophism also offers an explanation for fossil records. Different species may be in different geological strata as a result of major floods (McClure, 2009). Rather than being in a specific layer of rock as a result of living during a time period, some people think that fossils are in certain layers of rock as a result of major floods. Water levels rise and fall during floods, which is what some people have offered as an explanation for why there are different layers of rock and different fossils that correspond to

Over the past year, 12 percent of the oceans reefs have become bleached due to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification and in turn coral bleaching, is due to carbon pollution causing global warming, this makes the oceans warmer, thus making them more acidic. Coral reefs and shellfish cannot survive these levels of acid in the water. In particular the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, is suffering from this bleaching. The Great Barrier Reef has been declining in recent years due to this acidification, however, as of recently it has come knocking on death 's door. Carbon levels started rising about 200 years ago during the industrial revolution, because the machines invented started pumping carbon dioxide

About half of that man-made CO2 has been absorbed by the oceans, increasing the concentration of carbonic acid, which has caused the oceans to become more acidic. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has averaged about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a 25% increase in acidity over the past two centuries. That increase is projected to reach 150% by the end of this century, a rate of change not seen in 65 million years. A more acidic ocean inhibits shell growth in marine animals such as corals, crustaceans and mollusks, and disrupts entire food chains all the

The very nature of our ocean is to rise and fall, to sway with the pull of the moon, and to churn violently as the winds howl. The ocean has been this way since its inception and it will continue to do so as the arrow of time marches on. There have been cycles in which the nature of the ocean has wavered, but an equilibrium is kept, and life adapts. However, in our grotesque folly, we have decided that this should no longer be the case. We have changed the nature of our oceans so suddenly that life is crushed by force exerted through this change. Temperatures rise without regard to ecosystem or environment. Glaciers sweat profusely from the bombardment of heat. Sea levels rise. The importance of the oceans to the world at large cannot be understated.

“How acidification threatens ocean from the inside out: Carbon dioxide emissions are making the oceans more acidic, imperiling the growth and reproduction of species from plankton to squid”, by Marah J. Hardt and Carl Safina addresses the dangers of increasing acidity in the ocean caused by carbon dioxide. Hardt, a research scientist and writer, is the founder of Ocean Ink. Safina, an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, is the founding president of the Blue Ocean Institute.

By testing sediment and recording whether it was deposited under conditions of normal polarity and then measuring successive layers, we can build a time chart. By matching different charts from different areas with similar fossils, a more global correlation can be made.