Ancient Dust from Ocean's depths may have aided keeping the last Ice Age cool: Study

ocean floor of South Pacific contains traces of ancient dust that may have changed Earth’s very climate with recent research suggesting that it came all way from beneath ice glaciers of what is w Argentina. As per  study which was published in journal Nature Communications, se microscopic particles might have travelled across globe some 20,000 years ago before finally settling in middle latitudes of Pacific. Elaborating furr y added that teeny particles contained iron which perfectly explains a period of global cooling. 

Iron and Ice

Iron is a vital nutrient for microscopic algae in our oceans, kwn as phytoplankton. se creatures absorb carbon dioxide in ocean expediting global cooling. Scientists opine that during peak of Earth's last ice , a lot more iron-containing dust flowed into ocean during seasonal glacier melt.

All this extra iron fed phytoplankton that n lowered CO2 levels in atmosphere and could help to explain "how Earth could have become so cold at all at that time,” Torben Struve, a geoscientist at University of Oldenburg in Germany said.

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study

For purpose of study, team analysed 18 sediment cores from South Pacific Ocean between Antarctica, New Zealand, and Chile. y n compared collected geological data to chemical fingerprints of ancient dust. In aftermath, findings suggested that up to 80 per cent of iron-containing dust came from what is w rth-west Argentina and it probably blew re travelling roughly 20,000 kilometres on powerful westerly winds during last major ice . 

"We were surprised to find that sources and transport routes of dust were completely different from today and also different from what we would have expected. Global warming has changed winds and environmental conditions in source regions," said Torben Struve, a geoscientist at University of Oldenburg in Germany while speaking to phys.org.

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