Freshly Drilled Coral Cores ... from the Florida Reef Tract
Coral skeletons are drilled for geochemical studies.
The coral reef workgroup came back with Florida Keys cores and I took the opportunity to have a look at them before go into the laboratory for processing.
Looking closely, you can trace the coral polyp growth direction and even the transition from living coral to clean skeleton. Insight: the living part of the coral is only a thin outer skin. Further down the core individual polyp cavities become rock porosity.
This skeleton is biomineralized from sea water and incorporates and preserves trace elements and stable isotopes from the time the coral was alive.
Taking geochemical samples across the core allows us to recreate a detailed history of these trace elements.
These trace elements act as proxies for various parameters such as water temperature, salinity, nutrient availability, upwelling, polar ice volume etc.
These cores are not easily obtained anymore today, since coral reefs are in a bad conditon in the Florida Reef.
A lot of permiting is required to justify core extraction.
Fun fact: In the old days, several decades ago, it was common for researchers to use explosives to get large chunks of corals to study.
Further reading
USGS scientists drill a coral core in the Florida Keys
Woodshole Researchers on Coral Coring campaign
