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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 animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...
s and coralline red algae, and the temporal context in which they formed. It is particularly useful in the study of marine paleoclimatology
Paleoclimatology ( British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the scientific study of climates predating the invention of meteorological instruments, when no direct measurement data were available. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of ...
. 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:
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 of all kno ...
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
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
. 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 backup ...
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 skeleton
A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...
s
* annual, fortnightly, daily and ultradian growth increments in mollusk
Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...
shells
* annual bandings in the ear bones of fish, called otolith
An otolith (, ' ear + , ', a stone), also called otoconium, statolith, or statoconium, is a calcium carbonate structure in the saccule or utricle (ear), utricle of the inner ear, specifically in the vestibular system of vertebrates. The saccule ...
s.
Sclerochronology is analogous to dendrochronology
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of chronological dating, dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed in a tree. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, ...
, 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 model ...
* Paleothermometer
References
External links
{{Wikibooks, Historical Geology, SclerochronologyCoral Clocks
Subfields of paleontology Histology