Modern and deep-time brachiopods: climate change monitors of ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation

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The proposed research program of the next funding period aims to expand on the existing geochemistry database of modern brachiopods (GDB), and it will provide important additional information about the warming and acidification of the northeast Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans. The modern brachiopods obtained from British Columbia, Atlantic Canada, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and Antarctica will be invaluable in, a) documenting changes in the degree of ocean acidification over the past 100+ years, b) documenting similar changes in associated ocean warming during that same time, c) assessing the adaptability of brachiopods and some other marine invertebrates to natural ocean acidification and warming, d) modelling changes in climate change of the next century, and e) revealing more details about the oceanographic changes associated with some of the largest past mass extinctions (e.g., end Permian, early Jurassic). Student training will be as hands on as possible to provide them with the greatest acquisition of new and advanced geoscience skills, supplemented by essential technical, analytical and evaluation skill sets. These should serve them well for their future career in professional geoscience or advanced academic study. The brachiopod-based database will be unique in its composition by examining brachiopods from the intertidal to abyssal reaches of the oceans and seas, from warm tropical to cold polar settings, from low to high latitudes. Coupled with their wide geographic and geologic distribution and resistance to diagenetic alteration they will be novel monitors of oceanographic change and of Earth-changing climate events. A new and novel prospect is the potential of brachiopods to track changes in not only ocean temperature and pH but also of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane. This totally new information may be an important supplement or invaluable complement to the results from the open-ocean time-series at Bermuda (BATS), Hawaii (HOT), New Zealand (Munida), and others (most are limited to results for just the past 30-40 years), or information gathered by Department of Fisheries personnel at light stations along the coasts of Canada. Our in- and near-shore oceanic information is important because it extends the time series information into the early 1900's and sometimes beyond that to 120+ years. Also, the modern database of over 3000+ results should be of interest in providing baseline oceanographic parameters for the 20th century, from well before the open-ocean ARGO system of oceanographic data collection was started. Furthermore, our mostly in- and near-shore data should provide important oceanographic insight to the fish stock management industries along the west and east coasts of Canada. Documentation of ocean warming and acidification along the two coast lines will be of extreme importance to the sport and commercial fish industries and the economy of Canada.