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Precise X-Ray Microfluorescence Measurements of Sr/Ca Ratios In Corals For Paleotemperature Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Nicholas E. Pingitore Jr.  and
Ted Pogue
Nicholas E. Pingitore Jr.
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968-0555
Ted Pogue
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968-0555
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Extract

Coral aragonite encodes a rich, complex record of ambient environmental conditions (including temperature, salinity, pollutants) during skeletogenesis. Annual growth banding in appropriate species provides an internal calendar, and the rapidity of skeletal growth permits temporal sampling to at least a sub-monthly basis. The longevity of reef coral colonies can provide continuous centuries-long environmental records. The presence of well-dated Pleistocene coral reefs at sites across the world ocean extends this record into the more distant past. Thus corals are a remarkable resource for the investigation of environmental conditions over perhaps 7 orders of magnitude of time.

The past few years have seen considerable use of Sr/Ca ratios in scleractinian corals to reconstruct sea surface temperatures (SSTs) to document global change. The detailed correlation between Sr/Ca ratios in living corals and measured ambient water temperature is often remarkable, as is the match in older corals between Sr/Ca ratios and such other SST temperature proxies as 18O /16O ratios.

Type
Novel X-Ray Methods: From Microscopy to Ultimate Detectability
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 4 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '98, Microscopy Society of America 56th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 32nd Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia July 12-16, 1998 , July 1998 , pp. 366 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

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References

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