Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Filters

20201

Settings

Author: search.filters.author.Hughes, Hunter Passman

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Effects of seawater Sr/Ca on coral paleothermometry in the Florida Keys and Virgin Islands revealed by multi-year continuous monitoring
    (2020) Hughes, Hunter Passman; Kilbourne, Kelly H; Schijf, Johan; Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Coral skeletal Sr/Ca is a widely applied proxy indicator for tropical sea surface temperature (SST) because the elemental ratio in coral aragonite is influenced by both SST and seawater Sr/Ca. Application of the methodology assumes that seawater Sr/Ca is a constant in coral reef environments, and the ratio can be used to solve for paleotemperatures based upon an established coral Sr/Ca – SST relationship. This study tests that assumption by documenting seawater Sr/Ca variability in the Florida Keys and in the U.S. and British Virgin Islands using continuous osmotic pumps. Samples are analyzed for Sr/Ca using a novel method via Inductively Coupled Plasma – Atomic Emission Spectrometry. While mean seawater Sr/Ca did not vary significantly between sites, all sites exhibited significant annual variability (~0.5 – 0.1 mmol/mol), with the greatest variability observed in locations most impacted by freshwater discharge. These findings correspond to large temperature offsets (>2 degrees Celsius) in standard coral Sr/Ca-based SST reconstructions.