© Images created by Emma Kast, Princeton University, using paleogeographic reconstructions from Deep Time Maps, with their permission
Neither the continents nor the oceans have always looked the way they do now. These “paleomaps” show how the continents and oceans appeared before (top) and during (bottom) “the collision that changed the world,” when the landmass that is now the Indian subcontinent rammed northward into Asia, closing the Tethys Sea and building the Himalayas. Global ocean levels were higher then, creating salty shallow seas (pale blue) that covered much of North Africa and parts of each of the continents. A team of Princeton researchers, using samples gathered at the three starred locations, created an unprecedented record of ocean nitrogen and oxygen levels from 70 million years ago through 30 million years ago that shows a major shift in ocean chemistry after the India-Asia collision. Another shift came 35 million years ago, when Antarctica began accumulating ice and global sea levels fell.
Neither the continents nor the oceans have always looked the way they do now. These “paleomaps” show how the continents and oceans appeared before (top) and during (bottom) “the collision that changed the world,” when the landmass that is now the Indian subcontinent rammed northward into Asia, closing the Tethys Sea and building the Himalayas. Global ocean levels were higher then, creating salty shallow seas (pale blue) that covered much of North Africa and parts of each of the continents. A team of Princeton researchers, using samples gathered at the three starred locations, created an unprecedented record of ocean nitrogen and oxygen levels from 70 million years ago through 30 million years ago that shows a major shift in ocean chemistry after the India-Asia collision. Another shift came 35 million years ago, when Antarctica began accumulating ice and global sea levels fell.
Kast used microscopic seashells to create a record of ocean nitrogen over a period from 70 million years ago - shortly before the extinction of the dinosaurs - until 30 million years ago. This record is an enormous contribution to the field of global climate studies, said John Higgins, an associate professor of geosciences at Princeton and a co-author on the paper.
Comment: It's worth remembering that there has been signifcant controversy surrounding the LIGO project, and, as noted in the article, the scientists can't be certain about what they're seeing, just yet:
- "An illusion": Grave doubts over LIGO's 'discovery' of gravitational waves
- Weird gravity waves pulse from a tropical cyclone
- 'Gravity Waves' in Venus clouds spotted by spacecraft
- A new type of gravitational wave has been detected... maybe
- Researchers find sound waves a source of strange 'negative' gravity
- First ever black hole image has been released
- Fast growing black hole defies the laws of physics
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