Collaborative research: Calibration of deep-sea coral paleoproxies for nutrients, carbonate ion, and temperature

DESCRIPTION: Long-term laboratory cultures of the deep-sea coral Desmophyllum dianthus will be used to validate and refine the quantitative calibration of paleo-proxies for absolute (not relative) nutrient and carbonate ion concentrations, to use new analytical approaches to develop the paleo-temperature proxy Mg/Li, and compare laboratory culture-derived proxy calibrations to field calibrations derived from a large collection of live-collected modern specimens in an archived and fully documented collection from known locations in well-characterized waters surrounding New Zealand. The resulting refined calibrations will allow future reconstructions of these critical variables for the last Glacial period to the Holocene using fossil D. dianthus collections from New Zealand subantarctic waters as well as other critical global ocean water masses where fossil D. dianthus is found

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