Normally the deep sea bottom is a chalky white. It’s composed, to a large extent, of the mineral calcite (CaCO₃) formed from the skeletons and shells of many planktonic organisms and corals. The seafloor plays a crucial role in controlling the degree of ocean acidification. The dissolution of calcite neutralizes the acidity of the CO₂, and in the process prevents seawater from becoming too acidic. But these days, at least in certain hotspots such as the Northern Atlantic and the southern Oceans, the ocean’s chalky bed is becoming more of a murky brown. As a result of human activities the level of CO₂ in the water is so high, and the water is so acidic, that the calcite is simply being dissolved.

The McGill-led research team who published their results this week in a study in PNAS believe that what they are seeing today is only a foretaste of the way that the ocean floor will most likely be affected in future.

Long-lasting repercussions

“Because it takes decades or even centuries for CO₂ to drop down to the bottom of the ocean, almost all the CO₂ created through human activity is still at the surface. But in the future, it will invade the deep-ocean, spread above the ocean floor and cause even more calcite particles at the seafloor to dissolve,” says lead author Olivier Sulpis who is working on his PhD in McGill’s Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “The rate at which CO₂ is currently being emitted into the atmosphere is exceptionally high in Earth’s history, faster than at any period since at least the extinction of the dinosaurs. And at a much faster rate than the natural mechanisms in the ocean can deal with, so it raises worries about the levels of ocean acidification in future.”

In future work, the researchers plan to look at how this deep ocean bed dissolution is likely to evolve over the coming centuries, under various potential future CO₂ emission scenarios. They believe that it is critical for scientists and policy makers to develop accurate estimates of how marine ecosystems will be affected, over the long-term, by acidification caused by humans.

How the work was done

Because it is difficult and expensive to obtain measurements in the deep-sea, the researchers created a set of seafloor-like microenvironments in the laboratory, reproducing abyssal bottom currents, seawater temperature and chemistry as well as sediment compositions. These experiments helped them to understand what controls the dissolution of calcite in marine sediments and allowed them to quantify precisely its dissolution rate as a function of various environmental variables. By comparing pre-industrial and modern seafloor dissolution rates, they were able to extract the anthropogenic fraction of the total dissolution rates.

The speed estimates for ocean-bottom currents came from a high-resolution ocean model developed by University of Michigan physical oceanographer Brian Arbic and a former postdoctoral fellow in his laboratory, David Trossman, who is now a research associate at the University of Texas-Austin.

“When David and I developed these simulations, applications to the dissolution of geological material at the bottom of the oceans were far from our minds. It just goes to show you that scientific research can sometimes take unexpected detours and pay unexpected dividends,” said Arbic, an associate professor in the University of Michigan Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

Trossman adds: “Just as climate change isn’t just about polar bears, ocean acidification isn’t just about coral reefs. Our study shows that the effects of human activities have become evident all the way down to the seafloor in many regions, and the resulting increased acidification in these regions may impact our ability to understand Earth’s climate history.”

“This study shows that human activities are dissolving the geological record at the bottom of the ocean,” says Arbic. “This is important because the geological record provides evidence for natural and anthropogenic changes.”

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Kareta presented the results during a press conference on Oct. 23 at the 50^th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Science in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Using telescopes in Hawaii and Arizona, the team studied sunlight reflected off Phaethon, which is known to be blue in color. Blue asteroids, which reflect more light in the blue part of the spectrum, make up only a fraction of all known asteroids. A majority of asteroids are dull grey to red, depending on the type of material on their surface.

Phaethon sets itself apart for two reasons: it appears to be one of the “bluest” of similarly colored asteroids or comets in the solar system; and its orbit takes it so close to the sun that its surface heats up to about 800 degrees Celsius (1,500 degrees Fahrenheit), hot enough to melt aluminum.

Astronomers have been intrigued by Phaethon for other reasons, too. It has the qualities of both an asteroid and a comet based on its appearance and behavior.

Phaethon always appears as a dot in the sky, like thousands of other asteroids, and not as a fuzzy blob with a tail, like a comet. But Phaethon is the source of the annual Geminid meteor shower, easily seen in early-to-mid December.

Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through the trail of dust left behind on a comet’s orbit. When they occur and where they appear to originate from depends on how the comet’s orbit is oriented with respect to the Earth. Phaethon is thought to be the “parent body” of the Geminid meteor shower because its orbit is very similar to the orbit of the Geminid meteors.

Until Phaeton was discovered in 1983, scientists linked all known meteor showers to active comets and not asteroids.

“At the time, the assumption was that Phaethon probably was a dead, burnt-out comet,” Kareta said, “but comets are typically red in color, and not blue. So, even though Phaeton’s highly eccentric orbit should scream ‘dead comet,’ it’s hard to say whether Phaethon is more like an asteroid or more like a dead comet.”

Phaethon also releases a tiny dust tail when it gets closest to the sun in a process that is thought to be similar to a dry riverbed cracking in the afternoon heat. This kind of activity has only been seen on two objects in the entire solar system — Phaeton and one other, similar object that appears to blur the line traditionally thought to set comets and asteroids apart.

The team obtained several new insights about Phaethon after analyzing data obtained from NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the Tillinghast telescope, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory on Mount Hopkins in Arizona. They think Phaethon might be related or have broken off from (2) Pallas, a large blue asteroid farther out in the solar system.

“Interestingly, we found Phaethon to be even darker than had been previously observed, about half as reflective as Pallas,” Kareta said. “This makes it more difficult to say how Phaethon and Pallas are related.”

The team also observed that Phaethon’s blue color is the same on all parts of its surface, which indicates it has been cooked evenly by the Sun in the recent past.

The team is now conducting observations of 2005 UD, another small blue asteroid astronomers think is related to Phaethon, to see if they share the same rare properties. This and follow-up work will help to untangle the mystery of what Phaethon is really like.

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Materials provided by University of Arizona. Original written by Teddy Kareta. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

In recent years, however, elk pregnancy rates have become the subject of controversy. Various researchers claim that stress caused by fear of wolves and nutritional deficiencies caused by drought can explain low pregnancy rates in specific elk herds, but until now the effects of brucellosis on elk pregnancy have not been scrutinized.

Utah State University researchers Gavin Cotterill and Johan du Toit report that by mid-winter, elk that test positive for brucellosis are less likely to be pregnant than healthy elk, independent from the abortions caused by that disease later in the year. Cotterill and du Toit, along with colleagues from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, US Geological Survey Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, and University of California Berkeley, discuss their findings in Ecology and Evolution published 28 October 2018.

“Mid-winter elk pregnancy rates are often seen as an indicator of an elk herd’s health and viability,” says Cotterill, a PhD candidate at USU and lead author of the paper. “If we’re interested in figuring out the effect that predators or climate are having on elk we need to also account for disease.”

The researchers analyzed pregnancy and disease data collected over the last 20 years at Wyoming’s supplemental winter feed-grounds for elk and ran additional pregnancy tests on stored blood samples.

“We found that the disease causes a substantial decline in the probability of pregnancy among young adult elk and the effect is weaker in older animals, but it’s still unclear what the mechanism is that’s causing this to happen,” said du Toit.

The results are not a cause for alarm but are a signal that this disease, which came to the area in infected cattle, has previously hidden consequences for the wild elk population. Quantifying this effect is important, particularly as brucellosis is spreading through the elk population, so that the effects of other factors influencing elk reproduction may be estimated more accurately.

“Elk numbers in most of the region are high, and we don’t expect that to change because of brucellosis,” said Cotterill. “It’s one more factor that researchers and managers need to keep in mind moving forward.”

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