U-Th dating and community composition analysis of sediment cores collected in 2014 on the reef slope of Clerke Island, Australia

DOI

Twelve reef sediment cores were collected on the leeward reef slope of Clerke Island, QLD, Australia via manual percussion coring on SCUBA in August of 2014. Each of these sediment cores were then divided into 5 cm subsections and sieved to collect clasts >4 mm. The genus of coral clasts >4 mm within each subsection were identified. Biomass of each genus was determined by weighing each sample after drying. Weighing and subsampling of cores occurred in early 2021. This data was collected to assess the temporal changes in coral community composition and understand how coral community dynamics in an isolated reef ecosystem with limited impact from sediment run-off and other localised anthropogenic effects since European colonisation. To temporally constrain the changes in community composition, U-Th dating was conducted on samples within each core. Samples were cut, crushed and cleaned then grains of pure aragonite were selected under a binocular microscope for dating purposes. Analysis occurred at the University of Queensland's Radiogenic Isotope Facility in mid 2021 using a Nu Plasma I Multi-collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.990398
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.990398
Provenance
Creator Hall, Ellen ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2026
Funding Reference Australian Research Council https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000923 Crossref Funder ID LE170100219 https://dataportal.arc.gov.au/NCGP/Web/Grant/Grant/LE170100219 A multi-institutional environmental radioactivity research centre; Department of the Environment https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000936 Crossref Funder ID DP180102526 National Environmental Research Program Tropical Ecosystems Hub Project 1.3
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Bundled Publication of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 2 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (143.282W, -11.975S, 143.284E, -11.968N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2014-08-04T02:40:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2014-08-16T05:25:00Z