Alongside our work examining the relative abundances of coral and mollusc skeletons, shark dermal denticles, sponge spicules and fish otoliths in large tracts of exposed mid-Holocene reefs, we have also been collaborating with Drs. Katie Cramer and Richard Norris (Scripps) to explore sequential changes in Caribbean reef ecosystems by extracting reef matrix cores in Belize and Bocas del Toro, Panama. We collected more than twenty 6m long aluminium cores from several lagoonal fringing reefs that capture reef ecosystem conditions going back the last couple of thousand years.

See more about the approach in this little video