After my last exhibition I have spent the last few weeks developing my ideas around ocean acidification. I came to the decision that at this stage of my research corals were too high up the marine scale, and I wanted to start at the beginning of the chain.
I had read in the weather makers about the Ocean drilling programme and a very significant project that took place at Shatsky Rise, where core samples were taken revealing deposits at a certain depth that up until this time had been missing from other records. These findings revealed a distinct lack of foraminifera, micro organisms used to construct an image of ocean conditions in the past. This meant that the oceans at this time were highly acidic and these creatures couldn't calcify to produce there shells, a trend that we are currently seeing. Being highly important on the food chain, it is believed the lack of foraminifera plus poor ocean conditions would have caused a mass ocean extinction.
Foraminifera along with other biogenous sediments and shell building plankton's trap carbon when they build shells. The increase in atmospheric carbon is causing more acidic oceans resulting in their shells dissolving and the inability to calcify at full capacity. When these organisms die they sink to the sea floor trapping vast amounts of carbon (50,000,000gt), only now, due to increased acidity these dead organisms are dissolving releasing the carbon back into the ocean, thus increasing acidity, and so a spiralling cycle has begun, which I believe to be very bad news indeed for the state of the worlds oceans.
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