Our planet is precious ~
We are but custodians of an Earth that feeds us, nourishes our bodies and souls and gives us a precious life.
So when a scientific research project to study past shorelines around Australia (in relation to climate change) approached me requesting the use of my pictorial Australia map to illustrate the progression of their quest, I was more than happy to oblige.
The team, lead by Maureen Raymo a geologist from Columbia University, USA, started off in Melbourne, Victoria and travelled over 8,000km (5,000 miles), first crossing the Nullarbor Plain to Perth…
…then up the coast of Western Australia, through Geraldton to Exmouth.
The purpose of the expedition was to search for geological evidence dating from the Pliocene period, which occurred between 4.5 to 2.5 million years ago when the world’s temperature was 2 – 3 degrees hotter than it is now. Upon locating areas dating back to this era Maureen Raymo and her team explored for past shorelines, measuring and recording the elevation of these shorelines above today’s sea level.
In the last 130 years the world’s temperature has warmed by one degree Celsius and at the Arctic and Antarctic the temperature has warmed nearly three times that – the potential of the icecaps melting, resulting in sea-levels rising, could be as dire as a two metre rise by the end of this century.
Sea Change: How High Will Waters Rise?
Studying how nature behaved under the warmer conditions of the Pliocene period will potentially offer insights as to what our planet faces if we allow the temperature of our Earth to continue to rise from the effects of global warming.
Project funded with a grant from:
United States Geological Survey and United States National Science Foundation
Video produced by:
Daniel Grosman, American science journalist
Global warming is a hot topic -
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