183 million-year-old “fossil ghost” reveals a repeatable “apocalypse”

According to PHYS, These “fossil ghosts” are 94, 120, and 183 million years old, directly linked to three mass extinctions that occurred in the same way as the Earth is changing.

The “fossil ghosts” are actually a group of single-celled plankton called coccoliththophores. Under the microscope, the rocks in which they once lay still show the outlines of monstrous and complex bodies.

Their boneless bodies were completely destroyed by time, but they also existed long enough for the sediment that covered them to fossilize, leading to the above-mentioned strange phenomenon.

The “fossil ghost” is 15 times narrower in diameter than a human hair – approximately 5 thousandths of a millimeter, but is extremely sharp, helping the team of scientists led by professor Paul Bown from University College London (UCL, member schools of the University College London – UK) perfectly recreate the ancient creatures. And they have helped fill a void that has baffled paleontologists for years.

Professor Vivi Vajda from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, co-author, explains that in the past, scientists were only looking for the plankton themselves, without paying attention to the rocks that might be hiding. contains “fossil ghosts”, so there are periods where the fossil record of this family is broken.

More specifically, the newly excavated “fossil ghosts” are related to the Toarcian Ocean Anoxic Event (T-OAE, occurring 183 million years ago), Ocean Anoxic Event 1a (120 million years ago). and Ocean Anoxic Event 2 (94 million years ago).

The causes of all three events – which caused the “apocalypse” for most species in the ocean and the sharp decline of species on land due to their impact on the food chain – were all due to a cause that today humans Modern people face: global warming. Whether natural or man-made, the consequences of global warming are often the same.

So the study of “fossil ghosts” will help scientists understand what happens to plankton, one of the rare species that still manages to survive through changes that can be beneficial or not. harmful to other organisms.

From there, they will be able to predict what happens to the food chain as global temperatures rise, how global warming causes extinction events, how plankton recovers from extremes. mass death… to have a forecast for the future.