New Study Reconstructs the Past Ocean 'Paleome'
When Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine
paleoecologist Marco Coolen was mining through vast amounts of genetic data
from the Black Sea sediment record, he was amazed about the variety of past
plankton species that left behind their genetic makeup (i.e., the plankton
paleome).
The semi-isolated Black Sea is highly sensitive to climate
driven environmental changes, and the underlying sediments represent
high-resolution archives of past continental climate and concurrent hydrologic
changes in the basin. The brackish Black Sea is currently receiving salty
Mediterranean waters via the narrow Strait of Bosphorus as well as freshwater
from rivers and via precipitation.