Roughly 56 million years ago, global temperatures rose 5 degrees Celsius within a few thousand years in an event called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Scientists have often attributed the relatively rapid warming of the PETM — frequently used as an analogue for understanding modern warming trends — to large-scale biogenic methane emissions from seafloor reservoirs. But in a new study, researchers tracking carbon and boron isotopes preserved in the shells of tiny marine creatures called foraminifera, or forams, question the conventional wisdom, instead pointing to a volcanic source for the carbon emitted during the PETM.
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