Coralline algae in the Mediterranean lost their tropical element between 5 and 7 million years ago
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - 09:42
in Earth & Climate
An international team of researchers has studied the coralline algae fossils that lived on the last coral reefs of the Mediterranean Sea between 7.24 and 5.3 million years ago. Mediterranean algae and coral reefs began to resemble present day reefs following the isolation of the Mediterranean from the Indian Ocean and global cooling 15 and 20 million years ago respectively.