Paleoceanography is the scientific study of past ocean states, processes, and variability on geological timescales, using physical, chemical, biological, and isotopic proxies preserved in marine sediments, microfossils, corals, and other archives. It reconstructs parameters such as sea-surface and deep-water temperatures, salinity, circulation patterns, biogeochemical cycles, ice volume, and sea level, often through analyses of stable and radiogenic isotopes, trace metals, and sedimentological characteristics. Paleoceanography is central to understanding ocean–climate feedbacks, carbon cycle dynamics, and the response of the ocean system to external forcings, and it provides critical boundary conditions and validation targets for climate and Earth system models.
Earth's oceans repeatedly lost oxygen and produced metal deposits during the planet's deepest ice ages. An international team of researchers analyzed manganese and other chemical signatures preserved in more than 27,000 ancient ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 3, 2026
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33
For decades, scientists have asserted that the leakage of warm, salty Indian Ocean water south of South Africa into the Atlantic is a major contributor to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a component ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 3, 2026
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488
The most severe droughts in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean arose when multiple natural climate cycles coincided, according to a new study from Stockholm University published in Science Advances. The findings shed new light ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 24, 2026
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193
Two Danish coastal cliffs where paleontologists have uncovered 55-million-year-old fossils of prehistoric wildlife are likely to gain World Heritage status as UNESCO's committee meets in South Korea.
Paleontology & Fossils
Jul 22, 2026
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21
A new study led by the University of Barcelona reveals that freshwater exported from the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea triggered major environmental changes across the Eastern Mediterranean.
Earth Sciences
Jul 16, 2026
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16
For more than 150 years, fossils of Jurassic fish scattered across Europe's museums were studied and drawn by generations of scientists. However, when a paleontologist decided to shine an ultraviolet light on them, a hidden ...
A Florida State University paleoclimatologist led the creation of a global database hosting thousands of seawater isotope measurements collected over almost 50 years that will aid scientists in generating more accurate climate ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 14, 2026
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7
Melting and breaking icebergs in the far-off northeastern Pacific Ocean can weaken a massive current system in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a University of California, Davis study published in Nature Communications.
Environment
Jul 13, 2026
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28
Earth has a natural thermostat that has kept the planet habitable for more than 100 million years. Scientists have struggled to fully explain how it works, but new research identifies a missing link between phosphate availability ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 13, 2026
1
369
The world's largest whale graveyard has been discovered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean by Chinese scientists, who found that the vast expanse of both new and ancient carcasses supports huge communities of deep-sea life.
Plants & Animals
Jul 11, 2026
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114
