Accretion History of Mid-Holocene Coral Reefs from the Southeast Florida Continental Reef Tract, USA

Authors

Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Nova Southeastern University
Bernhard Riegl, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow

ORCID

0000-0002-6003-9324

ResearcherID

F-8807-2011

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Coral Reefs

ISSN

0722-4028

Publication Date

10-1-2014

Keywords

SE Florida continental reef tract, Reef accretion, Holocene, Backstepping, Relict reef

Abstract

Sixteen new coral reef cores were collected to better understand the accretion history and composition of submerged relict reefs offshore of continental southeast (SE) Florida. Coral radiometric ages from three sites on the shallow inner reef indicate accretion initiated by 8,050 Cal BP and terminated by 5,640 Cal BP. The reef accreted up to 3.75 m of vertical framework with accretion rates that averaged 2.53 m kyr⁻¹. The reef was composed of a nearly even mixture of Acropora palmata and massive corals. In many cases, cores show an upward transition from massives to A. palmata and may indicate local dominance by this species prior to reef demise. Quantitative macroscopic analyses of reef clasts for various taphonomic and diagenetic features did not correlate well with depth/environmental-related trends established in other studies. The mixed coral framestone reef lacks a classical Caribbean reef zonation and is best described as an immature reef and/or a series of fused patch reefs; a pattern that is evident in both cores and reef morphology. This is in stark contrast to the older and deeper outer reef of the SE Florida continental reef tract. Accretion of the outer reef lasted from 10,695–8,000 Cal BP and resulted in a larger and better developed structure that achieved a distinct reef zonation. The discrepancies in overall reef morphology and size as well as the causes of reef terminations remain elusive without further study, yet they likely point to different climatic/environmental conditions during their respective accretion histories.

DOI

10.1007/s00338-014-1233-3

Volume

34

Issue

1

First Page

173

Last Page

187

Comments

©Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Additional Comments

Supplementary Material Included within Link

NSUWorks Citation

Anastasios Stathakopoulos and Bernhard Riegl. 2014. Accretion History of Mid-Holocene Coral Reefs from the Southeast Florida Continental Reef Tract, USA .Coral Reefs , (1) : 173 -187. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/318.