Studies and current issues on the reconstruction of paleo-environments based on trace elements of coral skeletons

Abstract

Elevated CO₂ caused by human activities is thought as a cause of future climate change driving global warming and ocean acidification. In order to predict global environments in the near future, it is required to understand the past environmental change and its process in detail. While it is well known that biogenic carbonates such as foraminifera and coccolithophorid are attractive tools to reconstruct the past environments, scleractinian corals also provide environmental data around tropical to subtropical region with much higher time resolution. In this review, I summarize previous works on paleo-environments based on chemical components of fossil and modern coral skeletons in order of the age from Pliocene to the present. Then recent studies concerning elemental variability in micro scales of skeletal surfaces and current issues accompanying with new findings from these studies are discussed. I hope that this review will inspire further study in this field.