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Sclerochronology is the study of periodic physical and chemical features in the hard tissues of animals that grow by accretion, including
The science of sclerochronology as applied to hard parts of various organism groups is now routinely used for paleoceanographic and paleoclimate reconstructions. The study includes isotopic and elemental proxies, sometimes termed sclerochemistry.
Improvements in imaging techniques have now realised the potential to decipher coral banding at daily resolution, although biological 'vital' effects may blur the climate signal at such a high resolution.Juillet-Leclerc, A., Reynaud, S., Rollion-Bard, C., Cuif, J. P., Dauphin, Y., Blamart, D., Ferrier-Pagès, C., and Allemand, D. 2009. Oxygen isotopic signature of the skeletal microstructures in cultured corals: Identification of vital effects. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73, 5320-5332.
Coral Clocks
Subfields of paleontology Histology
invertebrate
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
s and coralline red algae, and the temporal context in which they formed. It is particularly useful in the study of marine paleoclimatology
Paleoclimatology (American and British English spelling differences, British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the ...
. The term was coined in 1974 following pioneering work on nuclear test atolls by Knutson and Buddemeier and comes from the three Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words ''skleros'' (hard), ''chronos'' (time) and ''logos'' (science), which together refer to the use of the hard parts of living organisms to order events in time. It is, therefore, a form of stratigraphy. Sclerochronology focuses primarily upon growth patterns reflecting annual, monthly, fortnightly, tidal, daily, and sub-daily (ultradian) increment
Increment or incremental may refer to:
* Incrementalism, a theory (also used in politics as a synonym for gradualism)
* Increment and decrement operators, the operators ++ and -- in computer programming
* Incremental computing
* Incremental backu ...
s of time.
The regular time increments are controlled by biological clocks, which, in turn, are caused by environmental and astronomical pacemakers.
Familiar examples include:
*annual bandings in reef coral skeletons
* annual, fortnightly, daily and ultradian growth increments in mollusk
Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...
shells
* annual bandings in the ear bones of fish, called otolith
An otolith ( grc-gre, ὠτο-, ' ear + , ', a stone), also called statoconium or otoconium or statolith, is a calcium carbonate structure in the saccule or utricle of the inner ear, specifically in the vestibular system of vertebrates. The sa ...
s.
Sclerochronology is analogous to dendrochronology, the study of annual rings in trees, and equally seeks to deduce organismal life history traits as well as to reconstruct records of environmental and climatic change through space and time.Use in paleoclimatic study
The science of sclerochronology as applied to hard parts of various organism groups is now routinely used for paleoceanographic and paleoclimate reconstructions. The study includes isotopic and elemental proxies, sometimes termed sclerochemistry.
Improvements in imaging techniques have now realised the potential to decipher coral banding at daily resolution, although biological 'vital' effects may blur the climate signal at such a high resolution.Juillet-Leclerc, A., Reynaud, S., Rollion-Bard, C., Cuif, J. P., Dauphin, Y., Blamart, D., Ferrier-Pagès, C., and Allemand, D. 2009. Oxygen isotopic signature of the skeletal microstructures in cultured corals: Identification of vital effects. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73, 5320-5332.
See also
*Paleoceanography
Paleoceanography is the study of the history of the oceans in the geologic past with regard to circulation, chemistry, biology, geology and patterns of sedimentation and biological productivity. Paleoceanographic studies using environment models ...
References
External links
{{Wikibooks, Historical Geology, SclerochronologyCoral Clocks
Subfields of paleontology Histology