Knowledge of how the global ocean evolves on geologic timescales is key for identifying potential “priming” events for ocean memory. Our understanding of past ocean conditions comes from scientists such as PI Rafter, who use the geological archives (e.g., fossils in ocean sediments) to create time-series of past ocean conditions and analyze this reconstructed ocean history using standard statistical methods.

Here, we propose a new method for analyzing ocean history that draws upon traditional Ocean Memory Project tools (e.g., ideation among artists and scientists) to investigate the history of the ocean and climate via canonical datasets. Among the datasets to be used include the history of ocean oxygenation during the Paleoproterozoic, the Cenozoic change in deep-sea temperature (Figure 1), and the mid-to-late Pleistocene global ocean salinity. Each of these well-known datasets include large changes that can be considered potential “priming events” and therefore would be part of a collective Ocean Memory