Non-river flood barium signals in the skeletons of corals from coastal Queensland, Australia

Abstract

Two corals from coastal Queensland (Cow and Calf Islands, and Orpheus Island) have been analysed for a suite of trace elements by laser-ablation ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS). Barium signals in these two corals are ‘anomalous’ in comparison with Ba behaviour seen in other near-shore corals from this region. The two corals display large sharp peaks in spring which do not correlate with markers of river discharge (Y/Ca and fluorescence). This Ba pattern contrasts with ‘normal’ behaviour—characterised here by the patterns previously published for two other coastal Queensland corals (King Reef and Pandora Reef), which display Ba peaks in summer associated with flooding of nearby rivers [1] [D.J. Sinclair, M.T. McCulloch, Corals record low mobile barium concentrations in the Burdekin River during the 1974 flood: evidence for limited Ba supply to rivers?, Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 214 (1–2) (2004) 155–174]. Similarities are observed between the anomalous Ba in the Queensland corals and other published patterns of Ba behaviour in corals from South Africa and the Arabian Sea. This non-river flood Ba behaviour is characterized by large sharp spikes of Ba which are resistant to oxidative cleaning and form a continuous horizon within the coral. Curiously, not all corals from a region display anomalous Ba behaviour despite being in similar environments. The timing of anomalous Ba is consistent within a coral, but may vary from one location to the next. Anomalous Ba spikes are too large to be caused by Ba-rich upwelling, and no single environmental forcing function seems to be able to account for their timing. This combination of observations argues against an exogenous abiotic source for the anomalous Ba signal; instead, it may result from a biological event triggered by a combination of environmental parameters. Three hypotheses are presented, and critically tested against the observations: barite inclusion following phytoplankton blooms, decaying blooms of the blue-green algae Trichodesmium, and physiological perturbations associated coral mass spawning. None of the three hypotheses are fully consistent with all of the observations and it is concluded that no satisfactory explanation currently exists for the anomalous Ba spikes.