A new study published by researchers at the University of Hawai’i (UH) in Mānoa, lights on the crucial role of iron in the climate history of the earth and shows how the sources in the South Pacific have shifted over the past 93 million years. This groundbreaking research is based on the analysis of sediment kernels from deep sea crucial insights into the interaction between iron, marine life and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
Iron is an essential nutrient for the life of the sea and plays an important role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide by influencing the growth of phytoplankton that absorbs carbon dioxide. Although the importance of iron is well established today, researchers have a limited understanding of how the availability of iron has shaped the sea ecosystem in the past.
In order to examine the long -term history of the oceanic iron, the researchers analyzed the iron isotopes in three deep -sea sediment cores from the South Pacific, far from continental influences.
Red -brown tone safe from deep -seaed seeds in the Pacific. Credit Richard W. Murray
“In the past 93 million years, we have found that five primary iron sources have influenced the South Pacific Ocean: dust, iron from distant ocean sources, two different hydrothermal sources and a volcanic ash,” said Logan Tegler, the senior author and oceanography postdoctoral at the UH MānOa School of Ocean. “These sources moved over time when the locations gradually wandered away from the combs of the middle of the ocean.”
The study resulted in a development in iron supply: initially hydrothermal sources were the dominant source, but gradually took over and gradually took over and became the main contribution around 30 million years ago.
The influence of iron on the ecosystem, CO2 removal
“Understanding this historical context helps us to understand how iron ecosystems have shaped,” said Tegler. “It also raises questions about how the iron cycle could have certain microbes compared to others-a ecosystem with persistently low iron could prefer the microbes that are adapted to the survival of iron-limited ones such as pebbles such as pebbles.”
In many regions of the Pacific Ocean, iron availability limits the growth of phytoplankton and thus limits the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.
“The modern dust separation in the South Pacific is extremely low,” said Tegler. “However, our results surprisingly indicate that the South Pacific currently gets more dust than at any time in the past 90 million years, which is remarkable in view of its current reputation as an iron region!”
This study illuminates iron cycling over the wider Pacific basin and improves understanding of how essential nutrients such as iron shape and ecosystems and climate over millions of years.
“If human activities increase to the oceans through industrial emissions and combustion of biomass to the oceans, understanding the past disorders of the iron cycle is of crucial importance for the prediction and reduction of side effects,” added Tegler.
magazine
Paleozeanography and Paleoclimatology DOI 10.1029/2025PA005149
4.8
5
Voices
Article evaluation
Like this:
Load…
Related
Do you discover more from watts?
Subscribe to the latest posts to your e -mail.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.