GEOMAR  News

The mid-Cretaceous is a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea. The new study explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae Grafik: Ron Blakey, NAU Geology (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The mid-Cretaceous is a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea. The new study explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae Grafik: Ron Blakey, NAU Geology (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Global cooling as significant as global warming

GEOMAR Scientists contribute to international study about a “cold snap” 116 million years ago

An international study involving experts from the universities of Newcastle, UK, Cologne, Frankfurt and GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, confirms the link between global cooling and a crash in the marine ecosystem during the mid-Cretaceous greenhouse period. The findings have just been published in the June issue of "Nature Geoscience".


Read the full English press release on the webpages of Newcastle University:

www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/global-cooling-as-significant-as-global-warming


Reference
McAnena, A., S. Flögel, P. Hofmann, J. O. Herrle, A. Griesand, J. Pross, H. M. Talbot, J. Rethemeyer, K. Wallmann and T. Wagner (2013): Atlantic cooling associated with a marine biotic crisis during the mid-Cretaceous period. Nature Geoscience, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NGEO1850

The mid-Cretaceous is a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea. The new study explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae Grafik: Ron Blakey, NAU Geology (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The mid-Cretaceous is a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea. The new study explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae Grafik: Ron Blakey, NAU Geology (CC BY-SA 3.0)