Publication Date:
2023-05-12
Description:
Cold-water corals are widely distributed along the Atlantic continental margin with varying growth patterns in relation to their specific environment. Here, we investigate the long-term development of cold-water corals that once thrived on a low-latitude (17°40'N) cold-water coral mound in the Banda Mound Province off Mauritania during the last glacial-interglacial cycle. U/Th dates obtained from 20 specimens of the cold-water coral Lophelia pertusa, revealed three distinct periods of coral growth during the last glacial at 65 to 57 kyr BP, 45 to 32 kyr BP and 14 kyr BP, thus comprising the cool periods of Marine Isotopic Stages (MIS) 2-4. These coral growth periods occur during periods of increased productivity in the region, emphasizing that productivity seems to be the major steering factor for coral growth off Mauritania, which is one of the major upwelling regions in the world. This pattern differs from the well studied coral mounds off Ireland, where the current regime predominantly influences the prosperity of the cold-water corals. Moreover, coral growth off Ireland takes place during rather warm interglacial and interstadial periods, whereas off Mauritania coral growth is restricted to glacial and stadial periods. However, the on-mound sedimentation patterns off Mauritania largely resemble the observations reported from the Irish mounds. The bulk of the preserved sediments derives from periods of coral growth, whereas during periods without corals hardly any net sedimentation or mound growth took place.
Keywords:
Age, 230Th/U Thorium-Uranium; Age, dated; Age, error; Center for Marine Environmental Sciences; DEPTH, sediment/rock; GC; GeoB11569-2; Gravity corer; ICP-QMS, ThermoFisher, X-Series; MARUM; off Mauritania; POS346; POS-346; POS346_69-2; Poseidon; Request/Laboratory code; Sample code/label; Thorium-230/Thorium-232 ratio; Thorium-230/Thorium-232 ratio error; Thorium-230/Uranium-238, error, relative; Thorium-230/Uranium-238 ratio; Thorium-232; Thorium-232, standard deviation; Uranium-238; Uranium-238, standard deviation; δ234 Uranium; δ234 Uranium, standard deviation
Type:
Dataset
Format:
text/tab-separated-values, 320 data points
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