Abstract
The Mediterranean Sea is a unique archive of past climatology, as this region is sensitive to both global climate fluctuations and manmade disturbances. Our understanding of these processes is however, limited, due to the absence of high-resolution multi-element proxies in this region. Here, I present the first high-resolution record of trace-elements (TE) in Mediterranean aragonite veremtid reefs, spanning the last millennium. Modern vermetid TE contents are mostly in agreement with other marine biogenic aragonites, reinforcing the potential use of veremtid reefs as paleo-environmental proxies. The down-core U/Ca and Sr/Ca fluctuations resemble the main climatic events of the last millennium, potentially linked to changes in sea surface temperature (SST). Pb and Cd records are associated with anthropogenic pollution and demonstrate trends related to growing industrial activity in the Anthropocene. Carbonate records of Al, Fe and Rb are attested as potential proxies to infer terrestrial inputs. Fe/Ca is used to decouple dust from riverine sources, while Rb/Ca is proposed for differentiation between sources of dust. The sub-millennial multi-element study enables the observation of independent environmental patterns within a single archive, and the decoupling of anthropogenic imprint from natural variability.
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