The evidence sounds a bit weak - as I understand the paper summary they collected a bunch of snails just the one time in 2011 and found a correlation between shell damage and the concentration on aragonite in the water which is a form of calcium carbonate of which the concentration presumably varies with acidity. There could be a bunch of reasons why some snails where more damaged - storms, different ages etc. One sample with no control experiments is pretty weak data. If you wanted to check it you could put a bunch of snails in tanks and with varying pH and see if the effect is replicated I guess.
"In tanks filled with seawater, they raised 18 species of marine organisms that build calcium carbonate shells or skeletons. The scientists exposed the tanks to air containing CO2 at today’s level (400 parts per million, or ppm), at levels that climate models forecast for 100 years from now (600 ppm) and 200 years from now (900 ppm), and at a level (2,850 ppm) that should cause the types of calcium carbonate in shells (aragonite and high-magnesium calcite) to dissolve in seawater.
The test tanks’ miniature atmospheres produced elevated CO2 in the tiny captive oceans, generating higher acidity. The researchers measured the rate of shell growth for the diverse species ranging from crabs to algae, from both temperate and tropical waters. They included organisms such as corals and coralline algae, which form foundations for critical habitats, and organisms that support seafood industries (clams, oysters, scallops, conchs, urchins, crabs, lobsters, and prawns)."
There seems to be an established name for what you call mixing an acid and a base: Neutralization Chemistry.
Even freshwater lakes like lake erie ar pH 8.4, yet for some reason when articles are published about pH variance, it is never referred to as "neutralization" but rather "acidification"--with no mention of the net-alkalinity of the solution. The latter would paint the former phrasing as self-evidently awkward, of course.
Conversely, acid doesn't "eat away" at anything, it's that things happily dissolve themselves into acid.
These things don't disolve into acid--because they disolve into dilute alkaline solutions.
This is unlike acid rain--which is actually acidic:
Pure water has a pH of 7.0. However, normal rain is slightly acidic because carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolves into it forming weak carbonic acid, giving the resulting mixture a pH of approximately 5.6 at typical atmospheric concentrations of CO2. As of 2000, the most acidic rain falling in the U.S. has a pH of about 4.3.
The Ph of seawater is never acidic, and is by itself actually complex. See, eg:
"A National Research Council study released in April 2010 likewise concluded that "the <level of acid> in the oceans is increasing at an unprecedented rate."
The "level of acid" in the ocean?
Surely a scientist would say "the ph is declining..." or "alkalinity is being reduced" or the maybe "solution's alkalinity is being neutralized"?
