Publication Date June 17, 2016 | Gizmodo

Something Strange and Terrible Is Happening to Mussels 

California Coast
Photo: Gizmodo
Photo: Gizmodo

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago has been comparing the shells of live mussels pulled from the Pacific coast today with historical shells, some of them thousands of years old. They’ve come to an alarming realization: Mussel shells are getting thinner and thinner.[1]

Shells collected that are over 1,000 years old are on average 27 percent thicker than today’s shells...

The unsettling cause for the thinning shells is the rapidly acidifying waters of the Pacific Ocean. Essentially, the mussels are in the process of a slow dissolve in the acid bath they now spend their lives stewing in.