Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Sclerosponges: Potential High-Resolution Recorders Of Marine Paleotemperatures, Gary B. Hughes, Charles W. Thayer

Statistics

Sclerosponges have great potential as seawater temperature recorders. These animals precipitate their skeletons in carbon and oxygen isotopic equilibrium with the surrounding seawater (Druffel and Benavides, 1986). Their skeletons also display chemical properties that vary directly with changes in environmental conditions. Lack of photosynthetic symbionts allows sclerosponges to live below the photic zone, providing the potential to investigate past marine conditions beyond the range of corals. Individual sponges live for several centuries, preserving archives of pre-and postindustrial seawater variations within single specimens (Hartman and Reiswig, 1980). Cross-correlation of successively older specimens could yield up to 2000 years of marine history. …