If we knew that, we might be able to improve conditions in both Los Angeles Harbor and Port Phillip Bay. Berelson's Port Phillip Bay research was part of a study funded by Australian authorities. A report based on his research is under review by the Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science Journal. Berelson has uncovered another submarine enigma in the deep waters of the central Pacific. In a recently completed study, to be published in the next edition of the journal Deep Sea Research, Berelson and a team of collaborators examined the fate of the element carbon on the ocean floor.
Carbon falls to the bottom in various forms.
Most arrives as organic material, in the form of the soft tissues in the dead bodies of plants, animals and micro-organisms, and as calcium carbonate, the limy material in animal bones and mollusk shells. In a series of measurements based on lander data, Berelson and his team established that in recent geologic times, beginning 3,000 to 4,000 years ago, the rate of accumulation abruptly slowed. Elimination of those two possibilities implied that the composition of the bottom water itself changed markedly about 3,500 years ago, becoming significantly more acidic and, hence, better able to dissolve calcite. Berelson is looking now for an explanation of what might account for such a change. But why either change might suddenly have taken place 3,500 years ago remains a mystery.