Science Blog: "For the second time in as many months, the IODP Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) is making news with new analysis of ocean-floor sediments. In the Aug. 10 issue of Nature, an article authored by several of the expedition scientists summarizes their findings: more evidence that the Arctic was extremely warm, unusually wet, and ice-free up to the time the last massive amounts of greenhouse gases were released into the Earth's atmosphere - a period calculated to have occurred 55 million years ago, and known as the Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.
"Researchers have long recognized that a massive release of greenhouse gases, probably carbon dioxide or methane, occurred during the PETM. Surface temperatures also rose in many places by as much as 15 degrees Fahrenheit in the (relative) geological instant of about 100,000 years.
"Arctic sediment samples were largely unavailable until 2004, when ACEX scientists recovered the first deep-ocean sediment samples from beneath the ice-laden waters near the North Pole. ACEX, only the second scientific expedition to be conducted by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (established in late 2003), recovered 339 meters of subseafloor sediment samples."
Meanwhile another Science Blog report is hoping that ocean sediment can be used for storing carbon dioxide. From the article, "Deep-sea sediments could provide a virtually unlimited and permanent reservoir for carbon dioxide, the gas that has been a primary driver of global climate change in recent decades, according to a team of scientists that includes a professor from MIT. The researchers estimate that seafloor sediments within U.S. territory are vast enough to store the nation's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for thousands of years to come."
"2008 pres"
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