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.
Climate change has many culprits, from agriculture to transportation to energy production. Now, add another: the deep ocean salty blob.
Earth Sciences
Jan 7, 2026
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54
Earth system box models are essential tools for reconstructing long-term climatic and environmental evolution and uncovering Earth system mechanisms. To overcome the spatiotemporal resolution limitations of current deep-time ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 6, 2026
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25
A research team led by scientists at Kumamoto University has discovered a new genus of microscopic crustaceans from northern Japan, offering rare insights into how ocean currents in the North Pacific shifted during a key ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Dec 29, 2025
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155
For roughly 2 billion years of Earth's early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required for complex life. Oxygen began building up during the period known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), ...
Astrobiology
Dec 9, 2025
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81
Two new publications remap the understanding of reverse weathering in the scientific community. The Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Senior Marine Scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Krause, played a key role in both projects, which include several ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 2, 2025
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18
Around 12,000 years ago, the last Ice Age ended, global temperatures rose and the early Holocene began, during which time human societies became increasingly settled. A new study published in Nature Geoscience shows the ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 1, 2025
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27
Approximately 400,000 years ago, some areas of Greenland that are now covered by a thick layer of ice were exposed to fresh air and sunlight. Today, the Greenland Ice Sheet covers most of the land mass, but the southwestern ...
Environment
Nov 25, 2025
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136
A team of international researchers led by the University of Vienna have investigated the development of shark and ray biodiversity over the past 100 million years. Their surprising results show a continuous decline in diversity ...
Ecology
Nov 20, 2025
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26
Scientists have revealed that ancient bogs in the Southern Hemisphere hold clues to a major shift in Earth's climate thousands of years ago.
Earth Sciences
Nov 19, 2025
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47
Earth's largest mass extinction occurred about 252 million years ago, wiping out the majority of marine and terrestrial life, disrupting the global carbon cycle for several hundred thousand years, and earning the title "the ...
Ecology
Nov 13, 2025
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63
