In a recent study published in Nature, an international team of researchers led by Texas A&M University examined 50 years of scientific ocean drilling missions in a first-of-its-kind study to ascertain the amount of organic carbon that falls to the ocean bottom, also known as organic carbon burial, and falls deeper inside the Earth. The goal of this study is to help scientists better understand how climate change decreases organic carbon burial while increasing atmospheric carbon, or carbon returning to the atmosphere. This could be due to warmer oceans increasing bacterial metabolic rates.
For the study, the researchers examined data collected during 81 of the more than 1,500 seafloor sediment drilled cores, which provides a detailed account of organic carbon burial of the last 30 million years. The results suggest that scientists have a great deal more to learn about the Earth’s long-term carbon cycle and its dynamics.
"What we're finding is that burial of organic carbon is very active," said Dr. Mark Torres, who is an assistant professor at Rice University, and a co-author on the study. "It changes a lot, and it responds to the Earth's climatic system much more than scientists previously thought."
"If our new records turn out to be right, then they're going to change a lot of our understanding about the organic carbon cycle,” said Dr. Yige Zhang, who is an oceanographer at Texas A&M, and a co-author on the study. “As we warm up the ocean, it will make it harder for organic carbon to find its way to be buried in the marine sediment system."
Dr. Zhang described the study as the start of a new method of data analysis that may help inform us about the impacts of climate change.
Laurence Tognetti is a six-year USAF Veteran who earned both a BSc and MSc from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. Laurence is extremely passionate about outer space and science communication, and is the author of "Outer Solar System Moons: Your Personal 3D Journey".
