Reconstruction of Burdekin River runoff from fluorescent bands in massive Porites corals from the inshore Great Barrier Reef
Coral cores, 90 mm in diameter, were collected from two inshore reefs on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. One core was collected from a 4.0m high colony of P. Lutea on Pandora Reef, and the second core was collected from an 8.1m high colony of P. lovata on the fringing reefs surounding Havanah Island. The custom built underwater pneumatic drilling rig (Isdale and Daniel, 1989) was used to drill up to 800mm continuous lengths from coral colonies.
Coral slices of 7-mm thickness closest to their diameter were X-rayed and photographed under ultraviolet excitation. Measurements of relative fluorescence (luminescence) intensity were obtained using a purpose-built fluoromicrodensitometer (FLUORAC) and the fluorescence emitted was recorded at 0.425 mm intervals along the slice.
Streamflow data from October 1921 was supplied by the Water Resources Section of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Gauge Station 120001 on the Burdekin River at Home Hill. Records up to 1950s were via staff gauge and a continuous recording gauging stations was then built at Clare.
Other climate data used in the analysis included Rainfall and temperature in Queensland, as well as an index of cloud amount
This research was undertaken to develop a reconstruction of past runoff for the Burdekin River, based on fluorescence (luminescence) measurements from massive Porites corals collected from two inshore reefs, which lie in the path of the northward drift of the Burdekin River plume.
This data has been superseded by a more recent analysis with updated methods found in the record linked below "Freshwater Impacts In The Central Great Barrier Reef: 1648-2011"
Data and resources
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Lough JM, Lewis SE, Cantin NE (2015) Freshwater impacts in the central Great Barrier Reef: 1648-2011. Coral Reefs 34(3): 739-751HTML Open
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Palaeohydrological variation in a tropical river catchment: a reconstruction using fluorescent bands in corals of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia: Isdale PJ,…HTML Open
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Record for Freshwater impacts in the central Great Barrier Reef: 1648-2011.HTML Open
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Additional information
| Date (revision) | 2026-10-24 |
|---|---|
| Status | completed |
| Update frequency | notPlanned |
| Metadata language | en |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 |
| Source metadata | ISO 19115 XML |
| Last updated | 2026-11-05 |
| Created | 2026-11-05 |
| API | package_show |