Radiocarbon-based ages and growth rates of bamboo corals from the Gulf of Alaska

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Read Full Article (file size: 165693 bytes) Cited by GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L04606, doi:10.1029/2004GL021919, 2005 Radiocarbon-based ages and growth rates of bamboo corals from the Gulf of Alaska E. Brendan Roark Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA Thomas P. Guilderson Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA Sarah Flood-Page Department of Biological Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA Robert B. Dunbar Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA B. Lynn Ingram Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA Stewart J. Fallon Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California, USA Malcolm McCulloch Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia Abstract Deep-sea coral communities have long been recognized by fisherman as areas that support large populations of commercial fish. As a consequence, many deep-sea coral communities are threatened by bottom trawling. Successful management and conservation of this widespread deep-sea habitat requires knowledge of the age and growth rates of deep-sea corals. These organisms also contain important archives of intermediate and deep-water variability, and are thus of interest in the context of decadal to century-scale climate dynamics. Here, we present Δ¹⁴C data that suggest that bamboo corals from the Gulf of Alaska are long-lived (75–126 years) and that they acquire skeletal carbon from two distinct sources. Independent verification of our growth rate estimates and coral ages is obtained by counting seasonal Sr/Ca cycles and probable lunar cycle growth bands. Received 4 November 2004; accepted 18 January 2005; published 19 February 2005. Keywords: coral age validation; coral chemistry; Gulf of Alaska. Index Terms: 4860 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Radioactivity and radioisotopes; 4875 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Trace elements (0489); 4805 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling (0412, 0414, 0793, 1615, 4912). Read Full Article (file size: 165693 bytes) Cited by Citation: Roark, E. B., T. P. Guilderson, S. Flood-Page, R. B. Dunbar, B. L. Ingram, S. J. Fallon, and M. McCulloch (2005), Radiocarbon-based ages and growth rates of bamboo corals from the Gulf of Alaska, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L04606, doi:10.1029/2004GL021919. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.

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