Potential effects of ocean acidification on Alaskan corals based on calcium carbonate mineralogy composition analysis (NCEI Accession 0157223) ...

• Main Authors: Stone, Robert P., Guinotte, John, Hebling, Angela, Cohen, Anne, Cairns, Stephen D., Cross, Jessica N.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2017
• Subjects: Ocean acidification; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7289/v5hm56h2; https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/0157223

This dataset contains potential effects of ocean acidification on Alaskan corals based on calcium carbonate mineralogy composition analysis. Effects of ocean acidification (OA) on deep-sea coral habitats in Alaska could be pronounced given the particularly shallow and rapidly shoaling calcite and aragonite saturation horizons in the region. The magnitude of potential effects could partially depend on the corals' calcium carbonate mineralogy. We used X-ray diffraction and powerful full-pattern Rietveld data refinement to precisely determine the skeletal composition of 62 species of Alaskan corals-the most comprehensive cold-water coral dataset for any region of the world. Alaskan corals have complex mineralogy, including a high percentage of slightly polymorphic taxa. Scleractinians and octocorals were principally aragonite and calcite, respectively. A few octocorals were composed of the most soluble form of calcium carbonate (high-Mg calcite). Hydrocorals have the most complex mineralogy with many ...