DOI: 10.25921/2y3z-s846
title: NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Kurrimine Beach, Brook Island, Britomart Reef, Great Palm Island, Lodestone Reef, Pandora Reef, Havannah Island - Luminescence master chronology

description: Eight, multicentury, Porites coral cores were used to develop a 373-year chronology by cross-dating techniques adapted from dendrochronology.  Characteristic patterns of distinct luminescent lines within the coral skeletons were matched between coral cores from inshore and mid-shelf reefs in the central Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Skeleton-plots of luminescent banding were produced for each core and combined into a master chronology back to ad 1615. In addition to improving dating control, the luminescence master chronology provides a proxy for Burdekin River runoff and Queensland summer rainfall. Variations in the magnitude of the correlation between the luminescence master and the Mann et al. (2000) NINO3 sea-surface temperature reconstruction provides insights into the long-term stability of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) teleconnections.  Burdekin River runoff was significantly inversely related to ENSO variability for much of the period from the ad 1650s to 1800, suggesting that ENSO-related teleconnections were as dominant then as in recent decades. The extremely dry mid-1760s to mid-1780s stand out as a period of anomalously positive correlation between river runoff and the NINO3 reconstruction. Weak ENSO teleconnections are apparent from the 1800s to 1870s, when conditions were possibly similar to those reported for the 1920s-1950s.
description: Skeleton plots of luminescent (fluorescent) banding events visible under UV light were plotted for 8 multi-century Porites coral cores of varying length from 7 different reefs in the central Great Barrier Reef. Reefs are: Kurrimine Beach (-17.78, 146.13), Brook Island (-18.15, 146.28), Britomart Reef (-18.23, 146.73), Great Palm Island (-18.68, 146.58), Lodestone Reef (-18.7, 147.1), Pandora Reef (-18.81, 146.43), and Havannah Island (-18.85, 146.55). The skeleton plots were cross-dated and combined to produce an annually-resolved luminescence master chronology for 1612 to 1985 AD. The data given is as plotted in Figure 7 in the original reference. A given date, e.g. 1985, contains the luminescent banding for the 1984-85 austral summer wet season. Higher values indicate intense luminescent lines and a strong summer wet season. The luminescence master strongly correlates with annual instrumental Burdekin River runoff (r= 0.82, 1894-1985 series from Isdale et al. 1998) and the Lough (1997) Queensland Summer Rainfall Index (r=0.65, 1891-1985).
February 2024: Great Palm Island luminescence data file (hendy2003-pam2-lumin.txt) added to this study as part of the Great Barrier Reef Coral Skeletal Records Database (GBRCD) contribution. Two subsequent publications are: Lough, J. 2007. Tropical river flow and rainfall reconstructions from coral luminescence: Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Paleoceanography 22: PA2218. doi: 10.1029/2006pa001377 and Leonard, N.D., Welsh, K.J., Lough, J.M., Feng, Y.x., Pandolfi, J.M., Clark, T.R. and Zhao, J.x. 2016. Evidence of reduced mid-Holocene ENSO variance on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Paleoceanography 31(9): 1248-1260. doi: 10.1002/2016PA002967.