Oceans cover three quarters of the earth's surface and host many remarkable life forms. Earth scientists have been attempting to reconstruct the seawater temperature over time, but it is not easy to do so.
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have now identified a way to estimate ancient seawater temperature by probing tiny bones in the ears of fish.
“When you go back in time, you don’t have any fossilised seawater,” explained Ramananda Chakrabarti, Associate Professor at the Centre for Earth Sciences (CEaS), IISc, and corresponding author of the study published in Chemical Geology. Therefore, he and his PhD student, Surajit Mondal, in collaboration with Prosenjit Ghosh, Professor at CEaS, turned to otoliths – tiny bones found in the inner ear of fish.
