Salinity effects on the Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca in starfish skeletons and the echinoderm relevance for paleoenvironmental reconstructions
Borremans, C.; Hermans, J.; Baillon, S.; André, L.; Dubois, P. (2009). Salinity effects on the Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca in starfish skeletons and the echinoderm relevance for paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Geology (Boulder Colo.) 37(4): 351-354. dx.doi.org/10.1130/G25411A.1
In: Geology. Geological Society of America: Boulder. ISSN 0091-7613; e-ISSN 1943-2682
Skeletal Mg/Ca ratios of well-preserved fossil echinoderms have been used to reconstruct past Mg/Ca ratio in seawater up to the Phanerozoic, taking into account the known temperature effect on this ratio. This study investigates the effects of salinity and growth rate on Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios in starfish calcite skeletons grown in experimental conditions. Both ratios are not related to growth rate: on the contrary, both are positively related to salinity. This effect induces an error on the reconstructed Mg/Ca ratio in seawater that may reach 46%. An intriguing inverse relation between skeletal Sr/Ca ratio and temperature was recorded. The salinity effects are presumably due to physiological regulation processes.
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