Why seashells' mineral forms differently in seawater
Tuesday, March 3, 2015 - 06:30
in Earth & Climate
For almost a century, scientists have been puzzled by a process that is crucial to much of the life in Earth's oceans: Why does calcium carbonate, the tough material of seashells and corals, sometimes take the form of calcite, and at other times form a chemically identical form of the mineral, called aragonite, that is more soluble—and therefore more vulnerable to ocean acidification?