(Table 2) Radiocarbon dating on cold-water corals collected in the Mediterranean Sea

• Main Authors: Fink, Hiske G, Wienberg, Claudia, De Pol-Holz, Ricardo, Hebbeln, Dierk
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2015
• Subjects: #01; #02; #05; #07; #08; #10; #24; #27; #29; #30; #33; Age; 14C AMS; 14C calibrated; dated; dated material; dated standard deviation; maximum/old; minimum/young; Alboran Ridge; BC; Box corer; Center for Marine Environmental Sciences; Comment; Date/Time of event; Depth; bathymetric; bottom/max; sediment/rock; top/min; Depth comment; El Idrissi Bank; Event label; GC; GeoB11135-2; GeoB13711-1; GeoB13712-1; GeoB13714-1; GeoB13717-1; GeoB13718-2; GeoB13718-3; Lophelia pertusa
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.848438; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.848438

This study presents newly obtained coral ages of the cold-water corals Lophelia pertusa and Madrepora oculata collected in the Alboran Sea and the Strait of Sicily (Urania Bank). These data were combined with all available Mediterranean Lophelia and Madrepora ages compiled from literature to conduct a basin-wide assessment of the spatial and temporal occurrence of these prominent framework-forming scleractinian species in the Mediterranean realm and to unravel the palaeo-environmental conditions that controlled their proliferation or decline. For the first time special focus was placed on a closer examination of potential differences occurring between the eastern and western Mediterranean sub-basins. Our results clearly demonstrate that cold-water corals occurred sparsely in the entire Mediterranean during the last glacial before becoming abundant during the Bølling-Allerød warm interval, pointing to a basin-wide, almost concurrent onset in (re-)colonisation after ~13.5 ka. This time coincides with a peak in meltwater discharge originating from the northern Mediterranean borderlands which caused a major reorganisation of the Mediterranean thermohaline circulation. During the Younger Dryas and Holocene, some striking differences in coral proliferation were identified between the sub-basins such as periods of highly prolific coral growth in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during the Younger Dryas and in the western basin during the Early Holocene, whereas a temporary pronounced coral decline during the Younger Dryas was exclusively affecting coral sites in the Alboran Sea. Comparison with environmental and oceanographic data revealed that the proliferation of the Mediterranean corals is linked with enhanced productivity conditions. Moreover, corals thrived in intermediate depths and showed a close relationship with intermediate water mass circulation in the Mediterranean sub-basins. For instance, reduced Levantine Intermediate Water formation hampered coral growth in the eastern Mediterranean Sea during sapropel S1 ...