Study Reveals Sea Level More Variable Than Thought

摘要

Scientists,using a new method of dating coral reefs,have uncovered evidence that sea level can change by as much as 30 meters in just a few thousand years.The study was carried out by geochemists William Thompson and Steven Goldstein at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.As coral grows,the living part(the polyp)extracts minerals from seawater to construct the hard shell that make up the bulk of a reef.Among the substance that coral takes in is a small amount of uranium,including the isotopes 234U and 238U.