COG3

Title: "The geological record of ocean acidification"

Abstract: Marine sediments contain information on a variety of past climate and carbon cycle perturbation events that may provide insights into the consequences of ongoing ocean acidification and potential future biotic changes. A variety of candidate events have been proposed, however, in order to be able to draw valid parallels with anthropogenic ocean acidification, we must search for events with a duration shorter than ~10,000 years, and we must quantify seawater chemical changes with independent geochemical proxy evidence.

My research focuses on the calibration and application of paleoproxies in marine carbonates, in particular foraminiferal boron isotope and B/Ca proxies for marine carbonate chemistry. I will present an overview of culturing calibrations with planktic foraminifers and paleo-estimates that will ultimately help us to quantify ocean acidification at the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (56 Ma), an extreme climate event that displays close similarities with worst-case scenarios for the future.