Scientists from the University of Zurich came to this conclusion by examining the signatures of organic carbon in marine sediments.
Ocean dynamics occurred simultaneously with past dramatic climate change. The important role played by the study of carbon storage in the ocean, it can give a picture of climate change. Climate may change faster than previously thought.
Such changes are recorded in the sedimentary proxies of hydrographic changes on the continental margins that lie on the ocean-atmosphere-land interface. However, interpretations of these records are complex, given the complex interactions between processes that provide material in the form of particles.
Scientists have studied radiocarbon content (14C), measured for organic carbon in different fractions of granular sediment and foraminifera in the core of the sediment extracted from the south-western Iberian region, covering the last 25,000 years.
Variable differences of 0-5000 years in the radiocarbon age are manifested between organic carbon at different grain sizes and foraminifera of the same sediment layer.
The magnitude of the differences in 14С content depends on key paleogeographic indicators (for example, proximal density gradients of the downstream), which are interpreted as evidence of the exchange of Atlantic-Mediterranean seawater affecting the accumulation and translocation of specific carbon in grain size.
These results highlight the important link between regional hydrodynamics and the interpretation of percolating bottom sediments.
As a result of research, scientists have concluded that the process of erosion of organic matter, which was deposited on the ocean floor, can go not hundreds of thousands-millions of years, but much faster – only hundreds of years. For example, clays that form along the coast of China, in a few decades, may already be found in the region of Vietnam and the Philippines.
Sedimentary rocks, when they are moved, also capture the deposited organic matter, and that, while mixing the rocks, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect of such a carbon dioxide emission can occur by orders of magnitude faster than previously thought.