Combining X-Ray Fluorescence and Magnetic Techniques to Quantify Elemental Concentrations in Coral Cores from Belize
Abstract
Caribbean coral reefs are some of the most threatened marine ecosystems in the world. Research suggest that environmental stressors of local origin, such as sediment run off, can reduce the resilience of these reefs to global threats such as ocean warming. Material trapped in coral skeletons can provide information on the sources of particulate matter in the ocean ecosystem. Despite the importance of quantifying sources and types of materials trapped in corals, the research community is yet to fully develop techniques that allow accurate representation of trapped matter, which is potentially a major source of metal content in reef building coral skeletons. The dataset presented here is a progress and combination of two works presented at American Geophysical Union 2016 Fall Meeting; In this research, we explore the efficacy of X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), a widely used tool in environmental studies (but generally not in corals), to estimate detrital metal content in coral cores collected from four locations near Belize, with varying degrees of impact from coastal processes. Four coral cores together cover a period of 1862-2006. Trace, major and minor metal content from these cores have been well-studied using solution-based ICP-MS, providing us with the unique opportunity to test the efficacy of XRF technique in characterizing metal content in these coral cores. We have measured more than 50 metals using XRF every two millimeters along slabs removed from the middle of a coral core spanning to characterize materials present in coral skeletons. We compare the results from XRF to elemental concentrations reported from solution-based ICP-MS. Furthermore, we also compare our XRF data to magnetic measurements we have made in these same coral cores. Overall, it appears that the non-destructive XRF technique is a viable supplement to the ICP-MS in determining sediment and metal content in coral cores, and may be particularly helpful for assessing resistant phases such as grains of sediment that are not fully dissolved in the typical solution-based ICP-MS methodology. Our research clearly has strong implications far beyond that of these specific corals in Belize and will help researchers all over the world understand what is happening to coral reefs.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFMPP13A1070G
- Keywords:
-
- 4203 Analytical modeling and laboratory experiments;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL;
- 4215 Climate and interannual variability;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL;
- 4916 Corals;
- PALEOCEANOGRAPHY