Shells Form Unique Climate Archive On The Ocean Floor

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2008) — Most people who find a seashell during their summer holiday on the coast will probably not be aware that they have found a unique record of the climate. For Professor Bernd Schöne, however, these hard calcium shells provide a profound insight into the history of our earth and especially into the climate of the past. "We are currently able to reconstruct the climatic history of the past 500 years from shells on a year-by-year basis. Thus we can demonstrate, for example, that the North Sea has become one degree warmer over the past hundred years, probably an effect attributable to humans," explains the palaeontologist from Mainz.

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