Himalayas had 600 Million Year Old Ocean, Indian, Japanese Scientists Discover

In the last few years, a lot of new information has come to light about the oceans around the world. In this series, an ancient sea has been discovered in the Himalayan mountain range in India. It may be about 60 crore years old. This discovery has been made by scientists from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Niigata University of Japan.

In this regard, in a statement issued by IISc, it has been said that calcium and magnesium carbonate have been found among the minerals found in the Himalayas. This may help scientists understand what types of events may have caused major oxygenation in Earth's history. In this study published in Precambrian Research, Prakash Chandra Arya, PhD student at IISc's Center for Earth Sciences and lead author of this study, said, “We have discovered a time capsule for paleo oceans.” Scientists believe that 500 million to 700 million years ago, the Earth was covered with thick sheets of ice for a long period. After this, the second largest oxygenation event took place due to increase in the amount of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere.

IISc says that scientists have not yet fully understood how these events were interconnected. The main reason for this is the lack of well-preserved fossils and the disappearance of all the ancient seas that existed in the earth's history. However, finding such rocks in the Himalayas may provide an answer to this mystery. This study says, “We do not know much about the seas of ancient times. We do not know how different or similar those seas were to the present seas. After getting this information, we can get some clues about the past environment of the Earth. “Can be found and can be used for climate modelling.”

Recently, researchers had reported that in the last two decades, there has been a major change in the composition of more than 56 percent of the world's oceans. The reason for this could be climate change caused by human causes. The size of these seas is larger than the total land on Earth. The color of the ocean indicates the life and materials in its waters. In regions near the equator this color is more green at times. This is revealing changes in the ecosystem under the surface of the oceans. Researchers at America's Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have written in their paper published in the journal Nature that this change in the color of the ocean is less visible to people than the naked eye.