Ancient sea water sealed 390 million years ago found in North America

Geologists have found tiny pockets filled with seawater sealed inside fromboidal perites

inside the ore about 390 million years ago. These are clusters of tiny spherical crystals that are preserved within other rocks. The discovery will help study how climate change has affected the oceans.

Many types of minerals and gemscontain small pockets of trapped fluid. These bubbles, for example, give a special shine to precious stones. Scientists have developed a technology that allows using microscopy and chemical analysis to look inside perites and determine the composition of water.

Investigation of fromboidal peritoneum in a tomograph. Photo: Eric Francavilla, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Using precise and sensitive methods of atomicprobe tomography and mass spectrometry, which can detect minute amounts of elements or impurities in minerals, geologists have determined that the bubbles do indeed contain water, and the chemical composition of their salts corresponds to the chemical composition of ancient seas.

An ancient inland salt sea once occupiedupstate New York, scientists explain. During the Middle Devonian period, this inland sea covered a significant part of the territory of the modern United States and Canada. It also had a coral reef that rivaled the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Sea scorpions the size of pickup trucks hunted in waters that were home to now-extinct creatures such as trilobites and the earliest examples of horseshoe crabs, scientists explain.

So far, research on the impact of changeclimate, which led to the disappearance of this inland sea, was carried out on the basis of salt deposits in geological rocks. At the same time, due to natural destruction processes, there are no long periods in the sediment record. The researchers believe that by analyzing the water from the pyrites, it will be possible to fill in these gaps.

Study of water in perites. Video: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Read more:

The main theory of the origin of man was refuted: where did we come from

World's first stool 'transplant' pill approved in Australia

Found the world's first "kitchen": they fried fish there 780,000 years ago

On the cover: a picture of water cavities under a microscope. Image: Daniel Gregory, University of Toronto; Cortland Johnson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory