- #exoCeanadvent Day 11: Science makes you do strange things. Meet @astridhylen.bsky.social, a postdoc working with carbonate dissolution in coastal sediments. She recently found herself in the middle of a salt marsh, stirring one of the ponds with a (clean) toilet brush taped to a curtain rod.
- Mixing a harmless, fast-degrading chemical into the water helps measure how fast animals in the seafloor pump water into burrows. Coastal sediments mainly have oxygen (brown) on the surface; the rest is oxygen-free (black). Animals bring oxygen-rich water into their burrows – look at that network!
- If there is oxygen in the sediment, carbonate shells can dissolve. Animals in the seafloor can therefore speed up the dissolution of carbonates. Since this process releases alkalinity, which increases the seawater’s ability to store carbon dioxide, worms can be little climate heroes 🪱Dec 11, 2025 18:27
