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Sources of Carbon to Deep-Sea Corals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Sheila Griffin  and
Ellen R M Druffel
Sheila Griffin
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543
Ellen R M Druffel
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543
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Abstract

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Radiocarbon measurements in deep-sea corals from the Little Bahama Bank were used to determine the source of carbon to the skeletal matrices. Specimens of Lophelia, Gerardia, Paragorgia johnsoni and Corallium noibe were sectioned according to visible growth rings and/or stem diameter. We determined that the source of carbon to the corals accreting organic matter was primarily from surface-derived sources. Those corals that accrete a calcerous skeleton were found to obtain their carbon solely from dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in sea water from the depth at which the corals grew. These results, in conjunction with growth-rate studies using short-lived radioisotopes, support the use of deep-sea corals to reconstruct time histories of transient and non-transient tracers at depth in the oceans.

Type
II. Carbon Cycle in the Environment
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 31 , Issue 3: June 20-25, 1988 Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia , 1989 , pp. 533 - 543
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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