Solution and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry measurements of Br, I, Pb, Mn, Cd, Zn, and B in the organic skeleton of soft corals and black corals
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Date
2011-03-29
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Publisher
AGU and the Geochemical Society
Abstract
Proxy records can be derived from soft corals and black corals using minor and trace element measurements
of the organic skeleton of these corals. Here, concentrations of Br, I, Pb, Mn, Cd, Zn, and B in the
organic skeleton were determined using solution inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)
in one black coral from 5 m depth and two soft corals from 85 and 105 m depth collected from a reef offshore
of Palau in the western tropical Pacific. Solution ICP-MS results indicate that concentrations of some
elements vary as expected with depth (Cd and Mn) while others are taxa specific (I) or colony specific (Br,
Pb, Zn, and B). The intensities of the same elements normalized to ^13C were also measured at high resolution
using laser ablation (LA) ICP-MS along radial transects covering the lifespan of the colonies. The
results here indicate that high-resolution LA ICP-MS elemental records in black corals could be more fully
developed for paleoceanographic reconstructions. In contrast, results of the laser transects from the two soft
corals were not reproducible for any of the elements, and no discernible patterns were detected that could
be developed into reliable proxy records using the current LA ICP-MS method.
Description
Keywords
black coral, soft coral, ICP‐MS, marine proxy development, tropical Pacific, trace elements
Citation
B. Williams and A. G. Grottoli, "Solution and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry measurements of Br, I, Pb, Mn, Cd, Zn, and B in the organic skeleton of soft corals and black corals," Geochemistry, Geophysics, and Geosystems 12, no. 3 (2011), doi:10.1029/2010GC003375