Testing coral paleothermometers (B/Ca, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, U/Ca and δ<sup>18</sup>O) under impacts of large riverine runoff

CHEN Tianran; YU Kefu; ZHAO Jianxin; YAN Hongqiang; SONG Yinxian; FENG Yuexing; CHEN Tegu

doi:10.1007/s13131-015-0705-9

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Article Navigation > Acta Oceanologica Sinica > 2015 > 34(8): 20-26

CHEN Tianran, YU Kefu, ZHAO Jianxin, YAN Hongqiang, SONG Yinxian, FENG Yuexing, CHEN Tegu. Testing coral paleothermometers (B/Ca, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, U/Ca and δ18O) under impacts of large riverine runoff[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2015, 34(8): 20-26. doi: 10.1007/s13131-015-0705-9

Citation:

CHEN Tianran, YU Kefu, ZHAO Jianxin, YAN Hongqiang, SONG Yinxian, FENG Yuexing, CHEN Tegu. Testing coral paleothermometers (B/Ca, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, U/Ca and δ¹⁸O) under impacts of large riverine runoff[J]. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 2015, 34(8): 20-26. doi: 10.1007/s13131-015-0705-9

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Testing coral paleothermometers (B/Ca, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, U/Ca and δ¹⁸O) under impacts of large riverine runoff

doi: 10.1007/s13131-015-0705-9

1.
Key Laboratory of Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China
2.
Radiogenic Isotope Laboratory, School of Earth Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

Received Date: 2014-04-10
Rev Recd Date: 2014-10-08

Abstract

Abstract

Sea surface temperature (SST) proxies including B/Ca, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, U/Ca and δ¹⁸O were analyzed in the skeleton of a Porites coral collected from the Zhujiang River (Pearl River) Estuary (ZRE). These geochemical proxies are influenced by river runoff and this area of the northern South China Sea is strongly affected by seasonal freshwater floods. We assessed the robustness of each SST proxy through comparison with the local instrumental SST. Coral Sr/Ca shows the highest correlation with SST variations (r²=0.59), suggesting Sr/Ca is the most robust SST proxy. In contrast, coral δ¹⁸O (r²=0.46), B/Ca (r²=0.43) and U/Ca (r²=0.41) ratios were only moderately correlated with SST variations, suggesting that they are disturbed by some other factors in addition to SST. The poor correlation (r²=0.27) between SST and Mg/Ca indicates that Mg/Ca in coral skeletons is not a simple function of SST variations. This may ultimately limit the use of Mg/Ca as a coral paleothermometer.
- Porites coral,
- SST proxies,
- coral paleothermometers,
- riverine runoff,
- Zhujiang River (Pearl River) Estuary,
- northern South China Sea

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References(44)

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