Continental movement is capable of throttling marine oxygen. A previously overlooked factor — the position of continents — helps fill Earth’s oceans with life-supporting oxygen. Continental movement could ultimately have the opposite effect, killing the majority of deep ocean creatures. “Contine
Red medusa found just off the bottom of the deep sea in Alaska. Credit: Hidden Ocean 2005/NOAAA previously overlooked factor — the position of continents — helps fill Earth’s oceans with life-supporting oxygen. Continental movement could ultimately have the opposite effect, killing the majority of deep ocean creatures.
Fish on a deep reef at Pearl and Hermes Atoll in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument near Hawaii. Credit: Greg McFall, NOAA Resting balloonfish near the Florida Keys. Credit: OAR/National Undersea Research Program ; University of Maine “Scientists previously assumed that changing oxygen levels in the ocean mostly reflected similar fluctuations in the atmosphere,” said Alexandre Pohl, first author of the study and former UCR paleoclimate modeler, now at Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté in France.
That separation meant the entire seafloor, except for shallow places close to the coast, entirely lost oxygen for many tens of millions of years, until about 440 million years ago at the start of the Silurian period. “We’d need a higher resolution climate model to predict a mass extinction event,” Ridgwell said. “That said, we do already have concerns about water circulation in the North Atlantic today, and there is evidence that the flow of water to depth is declining.”
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