BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Sept. 25 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led research team says rocks from the Pacific Ocean floor suggest dramatic climate changes occurred during the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era.
Researchers from Indiana University-Bloomington and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research said they've determined ocean surface temperatures varied about 11 degrees Fahrenheit during the Aptian Epoch of the Cretaceous Period 120 million years ago.
Indiana geologist Simon Brassell, who led the study, says the finding is relevant to the ongoing climate change discussion, since it portrays an ancient Earth where temperatures shifted erratically due to changes in carbon cycling and did so without human input.
Brassell said findings of a changeable global climate during the Cretaceous -- a time period dominated by dinosaurs and noted for the spread of flowering plants -- could influence the current climate change debate.
"One of the key challenges for us is trying to predict climate change," Brassell said. "If there are big, inherent fluctuations in the system, as paleoclimate studies are showing, it could make determining Earth's climatic future even harder than it is. We're learning our climate, throughout time, has been a wild beast."
