Decline of carbon-dioxide-gobbling plankton coincided with ancient global cooling
Sunday, January 11, 2009 - 15:14
in Earth & Climate
The evolutionary history of diatoms -- abundant oceanic plankton that remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year -- needs to be rewritten, according to a new Cornell study. The findings suggest that after a sudden rise in species numbers, diatoms abruptly declined about 33 million years ago -- trends that coincided with severe global cooling.