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Sea level and paleotemperature records from a mid-Holocene reef on the North coast of Java, Indonesia

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Abstract

Mid-Holocene age fossil-fringing reefs occur along the tectonically stable north coast of Java, Indonesia, presenting an opportunity for sea level and paleoclimate reconstruction. The fossil reef at Point Teluk Awur, near Jepara, Central Java, contains two directly superposed horizons of Porites lobata microatolls. Corals in the lower horizon, 80 cm above modern sea level, yielded Uranium series dates of 7090 ± 90 year BP, while corals in the upper horizon at 1.5 m grew at 6960 ± 60 year BP. These dates match the transgressive phase of regional sea-level curves, but suggest a mid-Holocene highstand somewhat older than that recorded on mid-Pacific islands. Paleotemperature was calibrated using Sr/Ca and δ18O values of a modern P. lobata coral and the locally measured sea surface temperature (SST), yielding SST–Sr/Ca and SST–δ18O calibration equations [T Sr/Ca = 91.03–7.35(Sr/Ca) and \( T_{{\delta^{18} {\text{O}}}} \) = −3.77 to −5.52(δ18O)]. The application of the local equations to Sr/Ca and δ18O measurements on these corals yielded a range of temperatures of 28.8 ± 1.7°C, comparable to that of the modern Java Sea (28.4 ± 0.7°C). A paleo-salinometer [Δδ18O = ∂δ18O/∂T (\( T_{{\delta^{18} {\text{O}}}} \) − T Sr/Ca)], re-calculated using the local parameters, also suggests Java Sea mid-Holocene paleosalinity similar to modern values.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Drs Wolf-Christian Dullo, Jens Zinke and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive reviews of this manuscript. The manuscript also benefited from comments by N. Catto, J. Rendell, and O. Sherwood. This project was funded by research grants from the Memorial University of Newfoundland (to Karem Azmy) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to Evan Edinger and Joyce Lundberg), and by a Geological Society of America student grant (to Evan Edinger).

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada

    Karem Azmy, Evan Edinger & Wilfredo Diegor

  2. Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

    Evan Edinger

  3. Department of Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

    Evan Edinger

  4. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Joyce Lundberg

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Correspondence to Karem Azmy.

Appendix

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Table 4

Table 4 Samples, measurement positions, δ18O in ‰ VPDB, and trace element contents of the studied cores from the Java Sea corals
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Azmy, K., Edinger, E., Lundberg, J. et al. Sea level and paleotemperature records from a mid-Holocene reef on the North coast of Java, Indonesia. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 99, 231–244 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-008-0383-3

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