Sediment core studies at the Campeche cold-water coral province, southern Gulf of Mexico

While coral mound areas in the NE Atlantic reveal a climate-dependent temporal pattern of CWC occurrence and mound aggradation that is related to distinct environmental conditions (e.g., productivity, water mass properties, hydrodynamics), the long-term development of CWC and coral mounds at the western side of the Atlantic is less well documented and understood.

Here, we present a 260-kyr coral record from the recently described Campeche CWC province in the southern Gulf of Mexico, combined with a reconstruction of the paleo-environmental conditions for the last 140 kyr. Uranium-series dating of 26 coral samples reveals that CWC growth predominantly coincided with interglacial periods. Highest vertical mound aggradation rates of 34 to 40 cm kyr^-1 occurred during the Holocene.