Coral records of historical terrestrial runoff

Project manager: Stephen Lewis

The chemical composition of long-lived Porites coral cores from the inshore Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have been used to reconstruct terrestrial runoff from the Burdekin River catchment. Coral geochemical records provide a means to quantify the amount extra sediments and nutrients delivered to the GBR lagoon since European settlement. Significant increases in the delivery of sediments and nutrients to the GBR lagoon from the Burdekin catchment occurred shortly after European settlement in the region (c. 1850). The results of this project have been published as:

• Lewis, S. 2006. Environmental trends in the GBR lagoon and Burdekin River catchment during the mid-Holocene and since European settlement using Porites coral records, Magnetic Island, QLD. PhD Thesis, School of Earth Sciences , James Cook University .

• Lewis, S.E. Shields, G.A. Kamber, B.S. and Lough, J.M. A multi-trace element coral record of land-use changes in the Burdekin River catchment, NE Australia . Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 246: 471-487.

In 2007, a new project was established in collaboration with the Australian National University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science to conduct coral core research in the Whitsunday Islands. The project aims to investigate changes in water quality over the last 150 years using coral cores along a water quality gradient in the Mackay Whitsunday Region. A suite of trace elements and isotopes in these coral cores will be used to investigate and quantify historical changes in sediment and nutrient runoff from waterways in the Mackay Whitsunday Region. This work is funded through the Australian Government’s Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility via a contribution by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.