Coral cores collected in Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, U.S.A.: Photographs and X-rays

Cores from living coral colonies were collected from Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida, to obtain skeletal records of past coral growth and allow geochemical reconstruction of environmental variables during the corals’ centuries-long lifespans. The samples were collected as part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coral Reef Ecosystems Studies project (http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/crest/) that provides science to assist resource managers tasked with the stewardship of coral reef resources. Three colonies each of the coral species Orbicella faveolata and Siderastrea siderea were collected in May 2012 as approved under National Park Service (NPS) scientific collecting permit number DRTO-2012-SCI-0001. These coral samples can be used to retroactively construct sea-surface temperature records by measuring the elemental ratio of strontium (Sr) to calcium (Ca), and are valuable for measuring additional paleoproxies as new methods are developed. Flannery et al. (2016) includes temperature reconstructions using samples from one of the six (coral CG2) collected in this study. The core slabs described here, as well as others (see http://olga.er.usgs.gov/coreviewer/), can be requested on loan for further scientific study. Here we provide photographic images for each core depicting 1) the coral in its ocean environment, 2) the core as curated and slabbed, and 3) the X-rays of the slabs. More information on coring methods can be found in the associated U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2016-1182 (Weinzierl et al., 2016). These coral samples are presently on loan from the NPS, stored at the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC) in St. Petersburg, Florida, and cataloged under accession number DRTO-353.