Abstract
PRELIMINARY results from a mineralogical study indicate that hermatypic corals may preserve in their skeletons a continuous record of noncarbonate sediments that were suspended in the waters in which they grew. Studies of coral structure, skeletal chemistry, and skeletal mineralogy1–6 have tended to neglect the significance of this trapped material. Our findings suggest that any comparison between the abundance of trace elements in corals from different areas may be questioned, as may those studies which suggest that large amounts of silica and aluminium are incorporated in skeletal carbonate.
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BARNARD, L., MACINTYRE, I. & PIERCE, J. Possible environmental index in tropical reef corals. Nature 252, 219–220 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/252219a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/252219a0
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