Scientists have discovered seawater remnants inside rock formations in the middle of the Indian Ocean that date back to the Ice Age. The discovery was made by researchers from the University of Chicago while they were on a months-long scientific mission to study the limestone deposits that form Maldives.
“Previously, we had to reconstruct seawater from the last Ice Age from indirect clues, like fossil corals and chemical signatures from sediments on the seafloor,” said an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, Clara Blattler.
The ship that they took, the JOIDES Resolution is specially designed for ocean science and has a drill that can extract cores of rock over a mile long from up to three miles beneath the ocean floor.
“But from all indications, it looks pretty clear we now have an actual piece of this 20,000-year-old ocean,” added Blattler.
During preliminary tests, they noticed that the water was salty but much saltier than normal seawater. Further research showed that these samples were not from today but remnants from the previous era that had migrated through the rock. This can be a groundbreaking discovery as it could shed some light on how the planet’s climate will react in the future.
