Greenland's ice sheet was smaller than today about 3-5,000 years ago

Washington, Nov. 23 : Scientists have said that Greenland's shrunken ice sheet was smaller than today about 3-5,000 years ago.

Jason Briner, PhD, University at Buffalo associate professor of geology, who led the study, said that on land, the atmosphere was warmest between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago, maybe as late as 4,000 years ago while the oceans were warmest between 5-3,000 years ago.



Briner and his colleagues looked at the structure of clam's amino acids - the building blocks of proteins - in the fossils of ancient clams. Amino acids come in two orientations that are mirror images of each other, known as D and L, and living organisms generally keep their amino acids in an L configuration.


Because this shift takes place slowly over time, the ratio of D's to L's in a fossil is a giveaway of its age.


The researchers then looked at the D and L ratios of aspartic acid in the 250 Greenland clamshells to come up with the fossils' ages.

The study has been published in the journal Geology.

--ANI (Posted on 23-11-2013)

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