US – An important climate event of million years ago, which caused substantial changes in ecological systems of the ocean, could offer clues about how the Earth will respond to future advancement of global climate change.

This is based on the results of a new study, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters,  by Jeremy Owens and his colleagues from Florida State University, University of California and Georgia Institute of Technology.

Certain parts of the ocean became inhospitable to some agencies as climate change raised temperatures on Earth 94 million years ago. As the planet warmed, some important things to the livelihoods of those days like today are natural substances such as certain vitamins for the human being are depleted. This growing shortage caused great mortality in many species.

The chemical elements that became much scarcer were vanadium and molybdenum important trace metals that serve as nutrients for ocean life. Particularly molybdenum is used by bacteria to help promote nitrogen fixation, an essential step in all the typical ecosystems.

These trace metals were reduced to levels below which organisms primary producers, the base of the marine food chain, are not able to survive. This change inhibited numerous biological processes.

The warming during this period took place over millions of years. At that time, the world was a dramatically different place. You could find palm trees in Canada, and the water lilies dotted the Arctic Circle, while there were dinosaurs on land.

As the world continued to warm, it caused a natural feedback unleashed in its entire rigor the aforementioned harmful effects on ocean chemistry of the planet.