Researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Science(CAS) and the Northwest University showed that, land snails were very sensitive to climate and environmental changes and they could record high-resolution terrestrial climate changes. 

The work was published in Geophysical Research Letters on 13 March 2024. 

Researchers carried out oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O_s) analyses at high-resolution (~0.3 mm intervals) from single snail shell and a large amount of data was obtained. They foundthat the intra-shell δ¹⁸O_s sequences of land snails were well reproducible and they could reflect seasonal to even daily scale changes of the precipitation δ¹⁸O, mainly from March to October in the studied region. 

It is worth noting that calculated average growth rate for nonadult C. fasciola snail shells is as high as ~290 mm/day (varying from 250 to 330 mm/day) according these new results. This means that the time-resolution of each intra-shell sample could reach to 2-4 days using the current manual sampling method. So, the land snail shells are very promising records for reconstructing high-resolution terrestrial environmental changes in the future. 

“We may obtain climate and weather timescale climatic changes from the fossil snail shells from past warm periods, such as the middle Holocene and the last interglacial. And this may serve as a mirror for us to understanding what we may experience in the near future under global warming conditions.” said Dr. DONG. 

Encouragingly, this new progress will make it possible for the integration of studies on the ancient and modern climate changes.

Contact: BAI Jie, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China. Email: baijie@ieecas.cn