Science Bulletin : Potential paleoceanographic application of cold-water bamboo coral in the south china sea

Zhiwei Zeng^a , Haowen Dang^{a *}, Enqing Huang^a , Xiaolin Ma^b , Xiangtong Huang^a , Le Kong^a , Ce Yang^a , Xiaoli Qu^c , Liping Zhou^d , Zhimin Jian^a

a State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China

b State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an 710061, China

c State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing System Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

d Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Department of Geography, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.

* Corresponding author, E-mail: hwdang@tongji.edu.cn

Abstract：

Recent deep-diving expeditions in the South China Sea (SCS) discovered abundant indigenous cold-water corals [1]. Cold-water corals, preferentially inhabiting the low-latitude intermediate and deep waters with hard substrates and a cool water temperature, have great potential to be applied in researches of the ocean interior by providing high-resolution records [2, 3]. Among cold-water corals, the bamboo coral (Order: Gorgonacea, Family: Isididae) may be the most promising group whose skeleton keeps sequential track of intermediate water conditions over a multi-decadal interval, but the paleoceanographic study of bamboo coral is still a vacancy in the SCS. Here we report the first cut-and-try experiments on the chronology and composition of a bamboo coral from the intermediate water of the SCS, exploring its paleoceanographic potentials in the subtropical western Pacific region.

Full Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095927321006988?via%3Dihub