From Australian Oceans Data Network
JSON format icon JSON RDF format icon RDF ISO19115-3 XML

Coral calcification in massive Porites in the nearshore region of the northern Great Barrier Reef

Created 23/06/2025

Updated 23/06/2025

JSON format icon JSON RDF format icon RDF ISO19115-3 XML

Ten massive Porites colonies were collected from the fringing reefs of each of 4 inshore islands of the Great Barrier Reef in January 2004. Two reefs were located in the Far Northern Region (Hannah Island and Hay Islands) and two reefs were located approximately 450 km away in the Northern Region (High Islands and Kent Islands). All colonies were >=30 cm in diameter and were selected from the leeward side of each island at depths between 1 and 3 m below the lowest astronomical tide. Of the 40 colonies collected, 38 colonies were found to be suitable for the analysis of growth parameters.A slice, approximately 7mm thick, was cut from the centre of each colony, dried and X-rayed. The positive X-ray prints were used to identify two tracks on each slice with clear annual density bands and also to date these bands. Skeletal density was measured at 0.25 mm intervals along each track using a gamma densitometer. From these measurements, spatial and temporal variations in three annual coral growth parameters; annual extension (linear distance between adjacent density minima (cm/y)), skeletal density (g/cm³) and calcification rate (the product of skeletal density and annual extension, g/cm²/y) were calculated. The three variables were then averaged across the two densitometer tracks for each corresponding growth year.While the age of annual growth bands ranged from 1971 to 2003, few bands were recorded before 1988 and analysis was focused on the period 1988-2003. Average monthly SST for each region were obtained from the HadISST 1.1 database, available from the British Atmospheric Data Centre. This study was carried out to examine temporal and spatial variation in growth parameters of massive Porites corals from two inshore regions of the Great Barrier Reef. The relationship between growth parameters and sea surface temperature (SST) was also investigated.

Files and APIs

Additional Info

Field Value
Title Coral calcification in massive Porites in the nearshore region of the northern Great Barrier Reef
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/3f16a7b5-8613-45f6-b6de-349a213fea98
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
reception@aims.gov.au
Reference Period 20/11/2017
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    143.716667,
    -13.866667
  ],
  "type": "Point"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "Coral calcification in massive Porites in the nearshore region of the northern Great Barrier Reef". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/coral-calcification-in-massive-porites-in-the-nearshore-region-of-the-northern-great-barrier-re1