Snails Tell Tales of Past Climate – #365papers – 2017 – 33

#365papers for February 2, 2017

Abell and Hoelzmann, 2000, Holocene palaeoclimates in northwestern Sudan: stable isotope studies on molluscs: Global and Planetary Change, v. 26, p. 1-12

What’s it about?

By measuring isotopes of carbon and oxygen from fossil snails, the authors were able to determine what the past climate in Sudan was like.

Why does it matter?

This is an important and now commonly-used method to understand past climate. This is one of the first papers that really showed how useful isotopes from shells can be for exploring ancient environmental change.

Why did I read this?

I’ve actually read this before, and now I’m reading it again. I’m starting up more research that involves molluscs, and I want to understand the state of the science. This is one of the seminal papers. Next, I’ll go into the Science Citation Index, and see who’s cited this more recently to get the very latest…