image: The carbonate skeletons of fossil deep-sea corals can be used to reconstruct past changes in the ocean. This fossil Desmophyllum dianthus was collected from the Drake Passage in the Southern Ocean from a water depth of 1750 m on cruise NBP08-05. It was alive around 12,300 years ago, and its skeleton provides a record of the chemistry of the seawater in which it grew. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Dec. 15, 2011, issue of Science Express, published by AAAS. The paper, by A. Burke at the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography in Woods Hole, Ma., and colleagues, was titled, “The Southern Ocean’s Role in Carbon Exchange During the Last Deglaciation.” view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Dann Blackwood, United States Geological Survey