A team of scientists from the University of Sydney (Australia) has conceived the first digital map of the geology of the Earth’s seabed, which represents 70% of the surface of our planet. The study has been published in the journal Geology .
Researchers have analyzed and categorized nearly 15,000 samples collected over half a century from research vessels. This new detailed map of the ocean floor (replacing the existing hand-drawn map from the 1970s) will help scientists understand how the oceans have responded and are responding to environmental changes. This is the first time that a digital map of these characteristics has been made.
“To understand environmental changes in the oceans we need to understand what is best preserved in the geological record at the bottom of the sea. The deep ocean floor is a graveyard made up largely of the remains of microscopic sea creatures called phytoplankton, which thrive in sunlit surface waters. The composition of these remains can help to decipher how the oceans have responded to climate change in the past ”, explains Adriana Dutkiewicz, leader of the study.
The updated map of the seafloor shows that the accumulation of diatoms (a special group of phytoplankton that produces about a quarter of the oxygen we breathe) is almost completely independent of blooms in surface waters in the Southern Ocean . “This disconnect shows that we understand the carbon source, but not its decline. More research is needed to better understand this relationship ”, explains Dietmar Muller, co-author of the work.
How does the ocean respond to climate change? Thanks to this new map we will soon be able to answer this question in which, above all, scientists have discovered that life in the Southern Ocean is much richer than previously thought.
