Sunday, July 13, 2008

Geological History

Ancient geological history



A micrograph of two types of foraminifera, M. sinuosa and W. baltica, used to study climate conditions during the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, 91 million years ago. (Credit: 2007 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego)

If the ice caps melts it'll be a disaster for large communities and economic centers on this planet. Still we do not know enough about the melting process on Greenland and the Antarctica. We see alarming signs in terms of increased temperature, decreasing glaciers, accelerating post glacial rebound (crustal uplift). But we also observe increasing glaciers and there are large areas we cannot observe well enough. An holistic approach is pivotal for us to improve our Earth system models. That includes ancient geological history as Scripps are doing.

It remains to be seen if the conclusions are correct though....

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